The Dead Ringer

by M C Beaton

  Agatha reached in the backseat and heaved a large bag full of cosmetics over. Mrs. Bloxby was glad they had arrived early because it took Agatha twenty minutes to do her makeup to her satisfaction.

  She got out of the car and peered up at the sky. “Looks like rain.”

  Black mountains of cloud were swirling up against a grey sky. Agatha turned and saw an old Bentley car heading for the vicarage. Helen Toms was out on the front step, curtsying as if before royalty as the tall thin figure of Lady Fathering descended from her car and towered over her. Behind her came her husband with a creepy smile. Her ladyship inclined her head and said something and the Toms got into her limo.

  “So, what did you think of her?” asked Mrs. Bloxby as they followed the limo out onto the Mircester road.

  “Tall, tweedy, cold. Hardly the type to want a baby.”

  “We’ll see. There’s some sort of reception. You will probably get to meet her if you push.”

  Agatha looked surprised. “I never push.”

  Goodness. She actually believes that, thought Mrs. Bloxby.

  The bell ringers were out in force. Helen Toms had been relegated to their ranks so that her place could be taken at the bishop’s side by Mavis Dupin.

  In seats along the wall were the elderly new residents of the brand-new home.

  “I am going to have a look around,” whispered Agatha.

  “But the speeches are about to begin!”

  “Then it’s a good time to go.”

  * * *

  Agatha quietly left the room and made her way along a corridor, stone-flagged and musty. Where were the offices? As if in answer to her unspoken question, there was a board when she rounded the corridor with signs TO OFFICE, TO CHAPEL, TO TOILETS, TO KITCHEN and so on.

  She located the office and tried the handle. To her surprise the door was not locked.

  She let herself in and jumped in alarm as the dean’s voice demanded, “Looking for something, Mrs. Raisin?”

  “Sorry. Need the loo.”

  “It is quite clearly signposted. I think you are snooping and I don’t like snoops.”

  Agatha was about to retreat when her eyes focussed on his white robe. A few cat hairs were clinging to it. She was about to accuse him but quickly decided that would be too dangerous so she gave him an apologetic smile and quickly made her way back down the corridor.

  As she entered the room, Lady Fathering was in full flow. She broke off and glared at Agatha.

  “Is there a policeman in the house?” asked Agatha.

  Bill Wong made his way from the back of the room. Agatha whispered urgently that the dean had cat hair on his robe. Bill signalled to a policeman and together hurried off.

  “Have you quite finished?” demanded Lady Fathering.

  Agatha snapped, “Yes,” her eyes on the door, hoping the dean hadn’t discovered the hairs and brushed them off. But she was aware of the bishop’s eyes searching her face.

  “As I was saying,” boomed Lady Fathering, “the bishop has worked tirelessly to raise money to give these ladies shelter in their declining years. The new building is at the other side of the cloisters. I suggest you all follow me there.”

  But the door opened and Bill Wong and the policeman entered, each one holding the dean by the arm.

  Bishop Peter turned quite white. “What on earth is going on?” he demanded.

  “I am being charged with nicking the Raisin woman’s cats. Get the lawyer.”

  “We need you at headquarters as well,” said Bill to the bishop.

  “I will follow you there,” said Peter haughtily, “after I have opened the old folks’ home.”

  * * *

  It was a long day with the bishop making an extremely tedious speech.

  “This will make headlines,” whispered Mrs. Bloxby.

  “Only if found guilty,” said Agatha. “They’ll put the blame on someone or get one of these infatuated women to confess. I’m quite hungry. I thought there would be some sort of buffet. Let’s call in at the Greek place and talk to that Glaswegian. He might have some clues.”

  Not only had the Greek restaurant been transformed into a curry house, but they learned that Jimmy had just left one day and they hadn’t heard from him since.

  “Maybe there’ll be something in the newspapers,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “All the locals were there and they followed the police and then ran out of the room.”

  “Oh look,” said Agatha, “that tea shop over there is new. Let’s comfort ourselves with pots of tea and cream cakes.

  “The sad fact is,” said Agatha half an hour later, “bad weather plays hell with the waistline. That’s when I want comfort food. You know, I can hardly say I have had one intuitive breakthrough.”

  “What exactly do you mean by intuitive?”

  “It is like this. I am like a Victorian detective. I do not have access to forensics or autopsy reports so I have to rely on old-fashioned intuition and guesswork. Also, I haven’t been asking enough questions. I shy away from the murder of Terry. I feel guilty, so I don’t stop to ask, what made him a threat? And although Doris’s husband let him in, how did the killer get in?”

  “Over the garden fence? Perhaps the garden door was left open to let the cats out.”

  “James might have seen something. Finished? I’ll pay this and then we’ll go and see James.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot accompany you. Parish work.”

  “I’ll drop you off.”

  * * *

  Agatha, after she had left Mrs. Bloxby, walked next door to James’s cottage and banged on the door.

  It was opened by Nadia, carrying a suitcase. “Off on holiday?” asked Agatha.

  “I am going home,” she said.

  “James?”

  “Inside.”

  Agatha walked into the living room. A log fire was burning and James was seated in an armchair in front of it.

  His face was set in hard lines. “Did I come at the wrong moment?” asked Agatha.

  “You are one walking, talking wrong moment,” said James. “Oh, sit down. Nadia has left me.”

  “What did you do?” asked Agatha. “Tell her to wear flat heels and no makeup?”

  “I wanted to shake it out of her,” he said sadly.

  “What?”

  “Love. I couldn’t believe it had gone, just like that. I had never experienced anything like it before. In fact, I thought it didn’t exist. I think it was Aristophanes, interpreting Plato, who claimed that once we were all androgynous, and that one day we were all cut in half and doomed to search the world for our lost half. It was like that. Utter madness. I think the chemicals in our brains or body trick us and I wonder if what I briefly experienced was not love but the total end to loneliness. Self-sufficient people like me never think of themselves as being lonely but I suppose deep down every human being is just that. Anyway, I was locked with her in a golden bubble and nothing in the outside world could spoil or get near that glory.

  “It is like some awful Greek myth. I woke up one morning and there she was, a beautiful but not very intelligent Ukrainian.”

  “I felt like that with Terry,” said Agatha. “I was prepared to throw everything up, ruin his marriage, give up my career and go to Australia. People should be warned against it, like manic depression or psychosis. At least I’ll know what it really is the next time.”

  “I’ll make some coffee,” said James.

  Agatha sat and stared into the flames, feeling obscurely comforted that she had found someone who could explain that recent madness.

  James returned and handed her a mug of coffee and a large ashtray. “I am even going to allow you to smoke,” he said. “But aren’t you ashamed to be so old-fashioned?”

  “Bollocks!”

  “Still, alcohol will follow now they have put the price up in Scotland.”

  “Bollocks to that, too. I read an article once about how people got their highs before they could afford decent booze. Cider with surgical spirit,
Coca-Cola and two codeine, or make your own with wood alcohol and go blind. But you have said something so important I have to think. Shut up for a moment.”

  Agatha lit a cigarette, reflecting that James must be really upset to allow her to smoke.

  If she herself had temporarily gone mad, what about one of the suspects? The bishop had been working on so many women to fund that nursing home. Why? She could swear he hadn’t an altruistic bone in his body. She could also swear that a feminine side had passed the bishop by. That might have explained his desire for gorgeous robes and getting up in the pulpit. It was indeed a wonder that with looks like his, he hadn’t gone on the stage. She voiced this last thought aloud.

  “I think his mother controls him along with the purse strings. I think his friendship with the dean is close because the dean finds ways to get round the mother’s possible parsimony.”

  “I need someone to talk to the bishop’s mother,” said Agatha.

  “Don’t look at me. You need someone like Charles. In fact, someone just drove past.”

  James went to his front door and looked out. Then Agatha heard him call, “Charles! In here.”

  Agatha realised that she had not talked to Charles for a good few weeks.

  “That coffee smells nice,” said Charles. “Any chance of a cup and I’ll just have one of your cigarettes.”

  “Not unless you promise to do something for me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Go to Lady Fathering and find out why her son so desperately wanted this old folks’ home.”

  “And what do I get in return?”

  “You may have a cigarette and here is James with your coffee. What more do you need?”

  “Oh, thanks, James. Where is Nadia?”

  “Gone.”

  “Ouch. Want to talk about it?”

  “No. Not now.”

  * * *

  To Agatha’s surprise, Charles called on her two evenings later to say that he had visited Lady Fathering.

  “Get me a stiff drink and a cigarette at the double. Goodness, that woman has had a maternal bypass,” said Charles.

  Agatha waited impatiently until Charles, with cigarette in one hand and a double whisky in the other said, “In her late husband’s will, he would only leave her all the wealth if it could be shown that she had made provisions for his three maiden aunts to be looked after. He died in his sixties. Aunties are all pushing ninety. Think of the expense! So, she orders her son to look after them so that she can claim that she has made provisions for them. If not, she will disinherit him.

  “Could not help asking why she had adopted him in the first place. I gather it was to help a friend, I said. She said, no. Actually, it was because Diana ‘Boofuls’ Teddington was swanning around with her brat and our lady here could not bear the competition. Now Peter did not want to be a bishop, but she insisted. Also, that he took one of the family names of Salver-Hinkley. The latest is that all those ladies the bish had been romancing to get into their bank accounts have found him growing cold. Hey, what about the cat hair?”

  “Being tested. Dean says it is the chapel cat. But he had a nasty gloating look on his face. I bet he got rid of those cat hairs the minute I had gone, got the chapel moggy and rubbed it all over his cassock. Charles, have you any idea who might have committed these murders?”

  “My money is on Helen Toms. I think she fell for the bishop because there was no hope there but she didn’t know that. And she is the kind to go after the unobtainable. The next one to go will be her husband.”

  “Too obvious.”

  “Might be biding her time. Might be working on Julian.”

  “Don’t think so. Julian probably has moved on to look for another married woman he can rescue. Anyway, Bill Wong told me that the wicked Lady Fathering is off to the south of France. So, I’ll bet you anything, the bishop and his dean head off on holiday as well but far away from the south of France. What do you know about Plato or Aristhistonics, or whatever his name was?”

  “Not a lot. Oh, you’re talking about the other half?”

  “Yes.”

  “You never cease to amaze me.” Charles’s eyes sharpened. “Terry. Bless my heart and may it never stop. So, you thought you had found your other half?”

  “I didn’t. Something stupid in the chemicals in my body did.”

  “So where is this leading?”

  “Say some woman felt this for the bishop. It might drive her to murder.”

  “I think for it to work, he’d need to feel the same.”

  “He can switch emotion on and off like a tap. I think he’ll have to wait around until he is cleared of stealing my cats.”

  “Be careful,” said Charles. “If it’s not a woman but the bishop himself who is our murderer, he might decide to silence you. And forget about this Plato business if you are looking for an excuse to explain why you were ready to destroy someone’s marriage.”

  “If you were a woman, Charles, you would be called a bitch. How do you think I solved previous cases?”

  “By bumbling about and putting yourself at risk until the murderer comes after you. Elementary, my dear Watson.”

  “Yes, but to tempt the real murderer, I have to know who the murderer is. See, smarty pants?”

  “Yes, but you don’t know in this case. While you are dropping hints, clang, clang, clang, in front of our bishop, the real murderer, say Helen Toms, creeps up behind you with an axe.”

  “Trolley.”

  “What trolley? Are you off yours?”

  “Judy Garland. Clang, clang, clang went the trolley. As you were being sarcastic about me dropping hints, you should have said clunk, clunk, clunk. Anyway, get this, I am going to stage something.”

  “What, now?” said Charles. “Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated in the library. I will shortly unmask the murderer. That sort of thing?”

  “So what? I will phone the newspapers.”

  “Who are you going to accuse? Agatha! You are as daft as a brush.”

  “Ah, this is the clever bit. I tell everyone I know the identity of the murderer and I have just a few loose ends to tie up.”

  “Like the loose wiring in your brain. I’m off, Agatha. No, not another word. It’s all mad. And don’t give me any more of that Aristophanes crap. You had a grubby little affair without any thought for anyone else.”

  “Like who, Charles?” Agatha asked quietly. But the slamming of the door was her only answer.

  * * *

  After he had left, Agatha began to feel almost as stupid as Charles obviously thought she was. Nobody was paying her to find out the identity of the murderer. If that were the case, she could take the staff off their present cases and set them all to work by.… how?

  After some hard thought, Agatha phoned Toni and asked her to take charge of the work in the office in the morning. “I must find out who this murderer is,” explained Agatha. “He’s broken into my house and, if it is the bishop as I am sure it is, he even dared to pinch cats.”

  At the other end of the line, Toni reflected Agatha must be well and truly over Terry in that she should consider the kidnapping of her cats as a more serious crime than the death of her lover.

  After she had rung off, Agatha decided to go back to Thirk Magna in the morning and begin with the bell ringers.

  * * *

  The next morning was a typical late autumn day with mist shrouding the wolds and hanging crystals of moisture from the bushes. The bells were ringing. She was sure the noise was based on some mathematical set of changes but to her, she had to admit, it was nothing more than a jumble of sound. She suddenly wondered who had replaced Millicent.

  Unfriendly eyes stared at her as she entered the bell chamber. There was a newcomer she had not met before, a tall, thin man with thick glasses and a long head that looked as if it had been squashed at birth.

  “If it ain’t our very own Miss Marple,” jeered Harry Bury, the sexton.

  “I was about to offer to buy you all d
rinks over at the pub,” said Agatha. “But if that’s your attitude, you can…”

  Harry thought quickly of his low wages. Drinks with Agatha meant he might be able to have a Scotch along with a pint of beer. “Just joking,” he said hurriedly. “Right kind, I’m sure.” The others mumbled their acceptance.

  Julian fell into step beside Agatha as they all walked to the pub. “Now, what are you up to?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you when you are all listening. Who’s the newcomer?”

  “Oh, Sydney Carton. Yes, that was fortuitous. And I’ve heard all the jokes about ‘It is a far, far better thing I do…’ and I suppose he has, too.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That book by Charles Dickens. You know, the one about the French Revolution.”

  “Yes, now I know what you are talking about,” lied Agatha, who really still hadn’t a clue but was used to covering up the vast gulfs in her education.

  “Fortuitous? You mean, he’s a newcomer and he happened to be a bell ringer as well?”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  In the pub, Agatha took their orders and passed them to the barman who said he would carry the drinks over to their table. After Agatha was seated, she glanced under the table at Sydney’s shoes. They were black and highly polished. She wondered whether he was an undercover policeman. The press had recently begun to goad the police again about all the unsolved murders.

  He introduced himself as a retired civil servant who was on a walking tour and had learned they needed a bell ringer and he was passionate about campanology.

  A Tale of Two Cities, thought Agatha suddenly. Her mother had once dumped her at the local church hall while she went to the pub because there was an old movie showing. It had been black-and-white with Ronald Colman playing Sydney Carton. Is he undercover? Stupid to take such an alias. Drawn attention. The drinks were served. Mumbles of thanks all round.

  Julian was seated next to Gloria Buxton. Agatha noticed that Helen Toms did not look at all pleased. The butcher, Joseph Merrydown, said, “And what brings you back, Mrs. Raisin?”

  “To let you all know that I have found out the identity of the murderer and will make an announcement tomorrow.”