Agatha Raisin 07 (1998) - The Wellspring of Death

by M C Beaton

  “I can’t really go along with that,” said Agatha. “People have very short memories. Ancombe Water was flashed around the world because of the murders, yes. But then they forget that and just remember they’ve heard about it. I don’t believe that dicing with death has any attraction at all.” Agatha lit a cigarette.

  Guy pulled a newspaper cutting out of his pocket. “Oh, yes? Well, I’ve brought you a cutting about a hypnotist in Mircester. You do want to stop smoking, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” lied Agatha, who did not really in her heart want to stop at all. “I’ll get you another drink and then I’ll fix dinner.”

  “Okay. I’ll join you in the kitchen.”

  “No, don’t do that. I don’t like anyone watching me cooking.”

  She gave him another drink and then went into the kitchen and shut the door. All that talk about death being good for publicity. Was it Guy after all who was the murderer? She had arranged the salmon mousse on plates. The duck would need to be heated in the microwave and then both portions, along with the already micro-waved potatoes and vegetables, kept warm in the oven.

  What a fool she had been! James had kept insisting it was the Freemonts. How James would crow over her.

  She looked back at the closed kitchen door. Maybe a call to police headquarters…

  She cautiously picked up the receiver and got through to police headquarters. She asked for Bill but was told he was out. “Tell him,” she said urgently, “that Guy Freemont is at my home and I am convinced he committed those murders. This is Mrs Agatha Raisin. No, I haven’t time to wait to be put through to anyone else…” She heard a movement outside the kitchen door and quickly replaced the receiver.

  Her cats curled around her legs. She opened the kitchen door and shooed them out into the garden. “You’ll be safe there,” she whispered, and was later to wonder why she had not run out of the kitchen door and fled to safety herself.

  She put the duckling in the microwave, picked up the two plates of salmon mousse and headed for the dining-room.

  She put down the plates and lit the candles. Then she went through to the sitting-room.

  “Were you on the phone?” asked Guy. He was standing by the fireplace.

  “Were you listening?” asked Agatha lightly.

  “No, when you pick up the receiver in the kitchen, the receiver in here gives a little ping.”

  “Yes, I was on the phone. I was calling Mrs Bloxby, the vicar’s wife.”

  His face was hard and his eyes glittered oddly in the firelight. He took a step towards her.

  The doorbell rang.

  The police, thought Agatha.

  “I’ll just get that.”

  He caught hold of her arm. “Don’t you want to be alone with me?”

  He studied her face. Agatha tried to look as puzzled and offended as she would have been in normal circumstances.

  “AH right,” he said, releasing her.

  Agatha went to the door and opened it. Mrs Bloxby stood on the doorstep.

  Agatha goggled at her and then raised her voice. “I was just saying to Guy when I phoned you a moment ago that it was bound to be you.” She winked desperately.

  “I brought you some of my trifle.” Mrs Bloxby held out a bowl.

  “Come in and meet Guy,” said Agatha.

  “If you’re entertaining, I don’t want to interrupt you.”

  “Just a drink,” pleaded Agatha.

  “Yes, how nice.” Guy loomed up behind Agatha.

  “How good to see you, Mr Freemont,” said Mrs Bloxby. “I won’t stay long. As I was saying to Agatha a moment ago on the phone, I thought she might like some of my special trifle.”

  Guy looked as relaxed now as he had been tense a moment before. “You take the trifle, Agatha, and I’ll get Mrs Bloxby a drink.” Mrs Bloxby handed over the bowl of trifle and then put her umbrella in the stand in the hall.

  “Such a dreadful evening, Mr Freemont,” she said. “Oh, this is comfortable. I always think a log fire is so pretty. Just a sherry, please.”

  Agatha came in and sat down. The fact that Guy was more than likely a cold-blooded killer had finally sunk in and she felt sick and frightened.

  Mrs Bloxby looked brightly at Agatha and then at Guy. “Do you go to church, Mr Freemont?”

  “What?”

  “I asked, do you go to church?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am the vicar’s wife and I like to collect as many souls for the church as possible.”

  Mrs Bloxby knows, thought Agatha. Somehow she knows. It was totally out of character for the vicar’s wife to ask anyone if they went to church.

  Guy gave an awkward laugh. “Well, Christmas, Easter; I’m afraid I am a two-service-a-year Anglican.”

  “But are you never afraid for your immortal soul?”

  “Never think about it.”

  “Oh, but you should. We will all be judged on Judgement Day.”

  “I don’t want to offend you, Mrs Bloxby, but it’s all a lot of tosh. When someone dies, they just die—finish, the end.”

  “That is where you are wrong.”

  “How do you know that? God tell you so?”

  Mrs Bloxby took a sip of sherry and looked meditatively at the leaping flames. “No, but I have observed goodness in people as well as evil. There is a bit of the divine spirit in all of us. I have also observed an odd pattern of justice.”

  “Justice?” demanded Guy sharply and Agatha groaned inwardly.

  “Oh, yes, I have seen evil people thinking they have got away with things, but they always suffer in the end.”

  “The fires of hell?”

  “Yes, and they suffer from them in their lifetime. I think whoever killed poor Mr Struthers and Robina Toynbee will eventually suffer dreadfully.”

  “Not if the police don’t catch him, or her.” Guy stood up. “Excuse me, I’ve left my cigarettes in my coat pocket.”

  “Have one of mine,” said Agatha. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

  He went out. Agatha looked at the vicar’s wife with agonized eyes. She mouthed, “Don’t go too far.”

  Guy came in and stood in the doorway. He had his coat on and a small serviceable revolver was pointed straight at them.

  “Fun’s over,” he said coldly. “We’re going for a ride. Into the car and one squeak and I’ll shoot both of you.”

  “Why are you doing this?” demanded Agatha.

  “Just shut up and get moving. Move!”

  Outside, he snarled at Agatha. “You drive and the Holy Roller can sit beside you. One false move and I’ll kill you both.”

  “Take the road through Ancombe,” he ordered as Agatha drove off.

  Agatha felt all hope die. The police would come into the village the other way and so miss them. The cold muzzle of the revolver was pressed against her neck.

  Mrs Bloxby sat quietly beside her, hands clasped in prayer. What good will that do? Agatha wanted to scream at her.

  “Down to Moreton and take the Fosse towards Stratford,” ordered Guy.

  Agatha obeyed. There was nothing else she could do. Jammed beside her on the seat was her handbag, which she had picked up through force of habit. Was there anything in it she could use as a weapon? Nail scissors? Forget it. There was a little can of spray lacquer. If only she could get that and spray it in his face. But how?

  Start him talking, she thought. “So you killed them?” she said.

  “Just drive and keep your mouth shut.”

  In books, thought Agatha wildly, the criminals always bragged about their crimes, allowing the hero to escape. The windscreen wipers moved rhythmically like metronomes.

  They left Moreton-in-Marsh behind and out they went along the Fosse Way, the Roman road which, like all Roman roads, went straight up hills and down the other side. Roman armies had not gone in for easy detours.

  “Right here!” barked Guy.

  “This goes
to Toddenham,” said Agatha. “We could have gone round the back of Budgen’s.”

  “Drive!”

  Would Doris Simpson look after her cats? He surely meant to kill them.

  “Stop!” he commanded.

  Agatha stopped with a squeal of brakes. “You first,” Guy said to Mrs Bloxby. “If you run for it, I’ll kill her.”

  “Run for it,” Agatha urged the vicar’s wife. “He’s going to kill both of us anyway.”

  But Mrs Bloxby got out and stood meekly beside the car.

  “Into the field,” said Guy.

  Agatha found she was still clutching her handbag.

  As she ducked under the fence, she released the flap and groped for that little can of lacquer.

  “Now stand there, together.” The rain had stopped and faint starlight shone on the black revolver in Guy’s hand.

  He levelled the pistol at them.

  Mrs Bloxby left Agatha’s side and walked forward and put a hand on his arm.

  “This will not do,” she said gently. “You cannot get away with this.”

  He jerked his arm away.

  Agatha darted forward and sprayed lacquer in his face. He shouted, clutched at his eyes and dropped the revolver.

  The vicar’s wife grabbed the revolver and shouted, “Stand back, Agatha.”

  Guy looked at them blearily. “So go on and shoot.” He advanced on Mrs Bloxby. “But you won’t, will you, oh lady of God? You can’t!”

  His hand reached out.

  Mrs Bloxby shot him full in the chest.

  He stared at her in surprise and then down at the spreading stain on his white shirt. “I’ll be damned,” said Guy Freemont.

  Mrs Bloxby sat down suddenly on the wet grass. “Probably,” she said faintly and then buried her face in her hands.

  Guy toppled forward on his face and lay still. The moon swam out from behind ragged black clouds. Far away the thunder grumbled.

  Agatha walked on shaking legs and pulled Mrs Bloxby to her feet. “We need to get help and I’m not leaving you here.”

  “God forgive me,” whispered Mrs Bloxby. “I’ve killed him.”

  “Maybe not,” said Agatha. “But we’re not waiting to see.”

  She helped the vicar’s wife into the car. The keys were still in the ignition. Agatha found that her legs were trembling so much that she could barely press the accelerator.

  But she managed to start the car and drive into Toddenham, stopping at the first house.

  The householder who answered the door looked at the two women and then down at the gun which Mr Bloxby was still holding in her hands, screamed and slammed the door.

  “Give me the gun.” Agatha put it in her handbag.

  They walked next door. A slim young man answered it and after listening to their pleas to use the phone, that they had to call the police, invited them in. Agatha called for the police and ambulance, breaking off to ask the young man his address.

  “We’d best go back,” said Agatha. “You wait here, Mrs Bloxby, and I’ll stop them.”

  “No, I’ll come with you. I killed him.”

  The young man who had given his name as Gabriel Law made a move to accompany them and then decided against it. If one of these women had killed someone, he felt it would be safer to stay behind.

  Agatha drove the short distance to the field.

  They both sat silently in the car.

  “I had to do it,” said Mrs Bloxby at last.

  “Yes, you did, or we’d both be dead. How blind I’ve been! You know how I got on to him?”

  “No.”

  “Bill Wong said there was a single white Persian cat hair in the turn-up of old Mr Struthers’s trousers. But no One could find a trace of a white cat. That was, until just before he arrived at my house this evening. I had been over to see his secretary, Portia Salmond. She said she was having an affair with him. I noticed my blouse, the one I had been wearing when I went to see her—it had white cat hairs on it. Like a fool I first thought that Portia had been the murderer.”

  “You would have thought Portia would have got rid of the cat.”

  “But no one thought of her. And the police were asking around Ancombe for white cats but they didn’t explain why or make the information public. But you knew it was him. Why?”

  “The atmosphere of evil when I walked into your sitting-room was almost tangible. And you looked so white and frightened. I put your life at risk, Agatha. I was frightened, too, and that’s how I let him know he was suspected. What a silly fool I was. Listen! Is that a police siren?”

  Agatha rolled down the window. “Several,” she said.

  They both got out and stood in the road.

  Bill Wong erupted out the first car, shouting, “Where is he?”

  “That field, just there.” Agatha pointed.

  Bill and Detective Inspector Wilkes and several policemen went into the field. “Get the ambulance here,” shouted Bill.

  Police cars moved to one side to allow the ambulance through.

  Agatha and Mrs Bloxby waited and waited. Finally a stretcher with Guy’s body on it was gently lifted over the fence; He had an oxygen mask over his face and a drip in his arm.

  “He’s still alive,” said Mrs Bloxby.

  And she began to cry.

  Ten

  “So he’ll survive after all.” Agatha was talking to Bill Wong in her kitchen a few days after Guy Freemont had been arrested.

  “Minus one lung, yes.”

  “I’m glad for Mrs Bloxby’s sake. I do not know how that good woman would actually have coped with killing someone. Has he confessed yet?”

  “He did when he came round after an emergency operation. He thought he was dying, you see. Now he’s found out he’s not, he’s got a lawyer preparing a defence that he was in shock.”

  “He won’t get away with that!”

  “No. He had keys to Portia’s house and that’s where he killed Struthers. She was out and he phoned Mr Struthers and asked him to come over. When he found out Mr Struthers planned to oppose the water company, he struck him with the poker. He also had the keys to Portia’s car, so he bundled Robert in the boot, took him to the spring and dumped him. To make sure Robert was really dead he gave him another blow on the head, hence the blood you saw.”

  “Surely Portia isn’t completely innocent? Where was she when he was using her car?”

  “She was having dinner in a restaurant within walking distance and there are witnesses to that fact.”

  “And what about Robina?”

  “Portia was helpful there as well,” said Bill. “She confessed that Guy had met Robina in a pub a week before the fête, but made Portia promise not to tell anyone about it. Back to Guy’s confession. Robina was in a state. She said she was sure there must be a loophole in the legal agreement. Guy said there wasn’t, and Robina then said she would make a public declaration about her change of mind on the day of the fete and that she had already prepared notes for a speech.

  “So Guy nipped away from the fête. He had already typed out notes on an old typewriter which he then dumped in the river. He was standing at the wall when he struck her down, picked up her notes and substituted his own.”

  “All that guff he gave me about murder being a useful advertisement was all a lie?” exclaimed Agatha.

  “Not quite. He said it had been very useful. His lawyer, of course, is trying to say that because of shock and drugs, he didn’t know what he was saying. He won’t get away with it. The forensic department took apart Portia’s house and found traces of blood on the carpet.”

  “Where did she keep the cat?” asked Agatha. “I didn’t see one.”

  “After the first murder, she had delivered the cat to her mother’s. Said she was too busy to take care of it.”

  Agatha scowled horribly. “I don’t think she can be innocent. You didn’t broadcast that you were looking for a white cat, but Guy must have known you were looking.”

  “It’s going to be very
hard to prove.”

  “And what of brother Peter?”

  “He seems to be in the clear. But I don’t think the water company will last much longer. Any profit they made will be swallowed up in Guy’s defence.”

  “Wait a bit,” said Agatha. “Who wrote those threatening letters?”

  “A frightened mad old man from Ancombe. He wandered into the police station to confess. His name is Joe Parr and he has a long history of mental instability.”

  “He caused Robina’s death,” said Agatha crossly. “If he hadn’t frightened her, then she wouldn’t have changed her mind.”

  Bill looked at her sympathetically. “Are you over your shock?”

  “I think I’m all right.” Agatha thought back to that terrible evening, of how James had appeared in the light of the police cars, just watching, making no move to come forward and comfort her. “Mrs Bloxby and I have talked it to death. The fact that she didn’t actually kill Guy has done wonders for her. She still feels guilty about nearly getting me killed, you know, giving Guy that lecture about Judgement Day.”

  “She was remarkably brave and so were you, Agatha.”

  “I was very silly. I hated those insulting bastards on the parish council so much, I was sure it was one of them. Did…did Guy say anything about me?”

  Bill folded his hands and looked down at them. Guy had actually confessed to romancing Agatha because he had found out her reputation of being an amateur detective and wanted to make sure she didn’t suspect him. “No,” he lied. “Not a word.”

  “I feel such a fool,” mourned Agatha. “To James it all seemed so obvious that it must have been one of the Freemont brothers, or both.”

  “Yes, he dug up some useful information about them. I told you about that.”

  “But why didn’t he drop me a hint? Why didn’t he tell me why he was going up to London?”