Beating About the Bush

by M C Beaton

  “Oh, go on then,” said his wife.

  Agatha looked at Clive in alarm as he unbuttoned his cardigan. How far was he going? What was it his wife didn’t want him to do? Was he some kind of nudist? Then he reached a hand into his silver curls and pulled, revealing a glistening, completely bald head. He patted it with a handkerchief.

  “I beg your pardon, ladies,” he said, dropping the wig in his lap. “Elizabeth likes it, but I can’t stand the thing.”

  “It reminds me of when we were young,” said Elizabeth, then laughed when she saw Toni’s wide eyes. “But maybe the time’s come to give up on it.”

  “So Aphrodite thought she had to marry Morrison to live in the UK,” said Agatha, “which probably isn’t true. What did he get out of it? A trophy wife?”

  “What he hoped to get,” said Elizabeth, “was his hands on her money. The business was failing and he was virtually broke. She, however, made him sign a prenuptial agreement. She was prepared to give him a very generous monthly allowance, but he wasn’t having her fortune. Even if she were suddenly to die, he wouldn’t get it. Under those circumstances, it would all go to an animal charity. He was greedy or desperate enough to accept that, doubtless in the hope that the money would one day somehow be his.”

  “In the meantime, however,” said Agatha, “the business was still in trouble. Did he ask for money from Clarissa?”

  “Repeatedly,” Elizabeth said, “but she wouldn’t give him a penny. She wanted him to leave Aphrodite, give up the business and set up home with her—but she would remain in control of the purse strings. So there he was, with two wealthy women, neither of whom were prepared to bail him out.”

  “And then there was Josie,” said Toni. “Do you know about her?”

  “Clarissa told us all about her.” Elizabeth sighed. “It was Clarissa who gave her the money to go off on her travels. Aphrodite was one thing, but that strumpet was quite another.”

  “And Clarissa liked donkeys?” asked Agatha, returning to the photograph.

  “She loved donkeys,” said Elizabeth. “She was besotted with Wizz-Wazz, and the feeling was mutual. I think Aphrodite only kept Wizz-Wazz because it annoyed Morrison, reminded him that there was an animal charity waiting for her millions should anything happen to her. The only person who showed the creature any love was Clarissa, which always amazed everyone given how prickly she could be with people at the factory. Wizz-Wazz returned that affection. That is why I know, Mrs. Raisin, that there was no way that donkey could possibly have killed my sister.”

  “We’ve been looking for something that belonged to Clarissa,” said Agatha. “A recording device. She always carried it with her.”

  “Mr. Sayer from the factory brought a box of her things,” said Elizabeth. She led the way to a door at the far side of the room. “It’s in here, in the study.”

  Agatha and Toni followed her, and Elizabeth showed them a small cardboard box sitting on a writing desk. In it were a scarf, a pair of gloves, a fountain pen, a case for spectacles and, right at the bottom, the recording device. Agatha picked it up and handed it straight to Toni, grinning in triumph.

  “How does it work?” she asked, displaying her customary grasp of technical gadgetry.

  “You switch it on like this,” said Toni, pressing the power button, “and the display will show you the files stored on it.” Then her face fell. “Except there’s nothing on it.”

  “But this was what Clarissa used to record people,” Agatha sighed. “It should be full of bits and pieces of conversations. Sayer must have wiped it clean before returning it with her other things!”

  “It might actually have been full,” said Toni, twiddling the machine in her fingers as she thought. “A device like this won’t carry on recording forever, but I don’t think Clarissa would want to delete her recordings. If I was her, I would want to transfer them to another device to store them, leaving this one empty to carry on recording. Mrs. Thirkettle, did Clarissa have a computer or a laptop?”

  “That’s what Sayer asked when he brought back her things,” said Elizabeth. “He said he needed to be sure that there were no company documents being kept outside of the factory. I told him she didn’t have any kind of computer here.”

  “Shit!” said Agatha, making no attempt to hide her disappointment, then, “Sorry!” when Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, I agree that it would have been fairly shitty,” said Elizabeth. “But I didn’t trust that man Sayer. So I lied.” She unlocked a drawer in the desk and produced a slim silver laptop computer. Toni opened it, pressed the power button and waited. The screen flickered into life, showing a photograph of Clarissa Dinwiddy standing proudly at Albert Morrison’s side. They were clearly at some kind of official function, as both were dressed in evening wear.

  “We need her password,” said Toni.

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know that,” said Elizabeth. “I have never taken much of an interest in that sort of thing.”

  Agatha glanced back at Mr. Thirkettle, who was now lolling in his armchair, head back, eyes closed, and mouth open—sound asleep. His silver wig sat in his lap like a bizarre codpiece, yet looking like it might hop down onto the floor and make a break for the door at any moment.

  “And neither has he,” said Mrs. Thirkettle, tutting at her husband and shaking her head when she realised he had nodded off.

  “Maybe we can guess it,” said Agatha, returning to peer over Toni’s shoulder. “Most people use something that’s easy for them to remember, don’t they? I always use—”

  “1-2-3-4-5,” said Toni.

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’ve had to find things on your computer lots of times when you’ve been out of the office.” Toni laughed. “You don’t have much patience with these things, so that was the obvious combination to try, and it worked first time.”

  “Really?” said Agatha. “Obvious?” I will change that first chance I get, she thought. I’ll make it “Hodge Boswell.” That should be easy enough to remember.

  “The other thing that lots of people do,” Toni continued, “is to use the names of their pets.”

  Blast! Agatha thought. Maybe I’ll make it “Charles.”

  Toni’s fingers flashed across the keys. “No,” she said, “It’s not Wizz-Wazz. Another common thing is to use the name of a loved one.”

  Oh for goodness’ sake! Agatha sighed.

  “Are you okay?” Toni asked, looking up from the keyboard.

  “Yes, yes!” Agatha snapped. “Look at that photograph of them together. Try Albert.”

  “It’s not Albert,” said Toni, having typed in the name. “How did she refer to him, though? ‘Mr. Albert’ was what she said, wasn’t it? No, it’s not that either. I’ll try Albert M. No, no luck there. Hang on a minute, though…”

  She plucked her phone out of her pocket and her thumbs flicked across its face, tapping in words so quickly that Agatha gave up trying to see what she was typing. Toni’s thumbs reminded her of the flippers on a pinball machine. Agatha had played pinball only once, many years ago, trying to impress a young man who, it transpired, was far more interested in the dings, toots, and flashing lights of the machine than he was in her. He had lost his game when she accidentally ground her heel into the top of his foot when she walked out.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Internet … anagram,” said Toni, returning to the laptop keyboard. “That’s it!” she whooped. “We’ve got it. Mrs. Dinwiddy’s password was Mr. Table, an anagram of Albert M.”

  The computer screen changed to show a host of little icons.

  “That’s a lot of folders,” said Toni, choosing one and clicking on it. “And inside there are yet more folders.”

  “Get on with it,” said Agatha impatiently. “What’s in them?”

  “Bingo,” said Toni. “Sound files. This is where she dumped her recordings. There must be thousands of them. Hours upon hours of the stuff.”

  “
Mrs. Thirkettle,” said Agatha, crossing back into the sitting room with Elizabeth. Mr. Thirkettle’s wig had migrated to his knee. She wondered if he had woken and moved it, or if it had crawled there itself. “Do you think we could borrow Clarissa’s old laptop? It looks like there are rather a lot of recordings on there that we need to listen to.”

  “If it helps you find who murdered my sister, Mrs. Raisin,” said the old lady with a slight tremble to her lip, “you are most welcome.”

  “Toni,” Agatha called, “bring the laptop with you. You’ve got work to do.”

  Chapter Seven

  Back at the office in Mircester, Toni copied all the sound files onto her own computer and Agatha locked the laptop securely away at the bottom of a metal filing cabinet. Sayer couldn’t possibly know that Elizabeth Thirkettle had given them the machine, but she didn’t want to take the chance that he might find out and come looking for it.

  “Where should I start?” asked Toni, sitting in front of a screen crowded with numbered files.

  “If you can tell which are the oldest,” Agatha suggested, “best start there. We have no idea what we are looking for, so we need to check everything. There could be a few words from a factory worker, or maybe the voice of someone we know that will prove to be vital. Some of it might not be relevant … might even be a bit dull…”

  After half an hour of listening to file after file of factory employees gossiping about everything from the heating on the local bus to hotel toilets in Tenerife, Toni turned to Agatha with a weary look.

  “You must hate being right all the time.” She sighed. “This is beyond dull. Why did she record all this stuff?”

  “I suppose she never knew what might come in handy for those little revenge campaigns she told us about,” said Agatha. “It’s not all dull, though, is it? There was the one about the woman who came home and found her husband trying on her wedding dress…”

  “That was a good one.” Toni laughed. “And so was this.” She clicked on a file, and a hushed voice came from the computer saying, “… she found him in the shrubbery wearing nothing but odd socks and a woolly hat…”

  “I wonder if that was the same man?” Agatha smiled, then looked at her watch. “Is that the time? I need to get home. Roy is meeting me there with the evening papers.”

  “I’ll plough through this for a while longer,” said Toni, clicking on the next file.

  “… my Jake were full of chat when we first met,” came the voice of a middle-aged woman. “Now he’s just full of crap…”

  * * *

  Agatha had barely had time to pour herself a gin and tonic and flop into an armchair before Roy Silver breezed through the front door carrying an armful of newspapers.

  “Success, darling!” he beamed. “We’ve made the evening papers across the region and the radio stations are all picking up on it too! My phone has been ringing itself to pieces and absolutely everyone is showing up for the product launch and photo call tomorrow morning!”

  He unfolded a newspaper to show a photograph of Agatha and Wizz-Wazz on the front page. Agatha sat forward, sizzling with excitement. She grabbed the newspaper and studied the photograph closely, but the print quality made everything look too fuzzy, so she held it at arm’s length. Her hair looked good. There were a few stray strands, but it was a breezy stable yard, not a red-carpet event, so she was prepared to accept that. Her smile was assured, confident, and strong, with a hint of a gentle touch. Yes, she was pleased with her smile, especially since the quality of printing combined with her make-up to hide any wrinkles. Oh no! Was that lipstick on her teeth? No, just bad printing again.

  Mumbling “Mmmm, yes,” and “Not bad at all,” she compared the front-page photo with two others that Roy held up, taken from different angles. Overall, she considered her left profile the most pleasing, closely followed by the full-face shots. Wizz-Wazz, she decided, looked equally hideous from whatever angle she was photographed. Agatha was, in her own honest opinion, most definitely the star of the show.

  “Hang on a minute, Roy,” she said, scowling. “What’s this?” She slapped the front page of one of the papers, where, alongside the photograph of her and Wizz-Wazz, the headline read: Local Woman Calls Mayor an Ass.

  “Local rags.” Roy shrugged. “They’re always doing things like that. They’ve done a good job on the story inside, though. Another photo, too.”

  “‘Private investigator Agatha Raisin today launched a campaign to save Wizz-Wazz the donkey. Full story on page five.’” Agatha read out the picture caption above the sound of a knock at the front door. “See who that is, would you, Roy?” She rustled through the paper, accidentally skipping past the page she wanted to where another article caught her eye.

  “Hey, Roy,” she called, browsing the article. “There’s a piece in here about Charles’s house. The Mircester Country Sports Association is to hold a fair there and it says that he’s … ENGAGED!!”

  “Hello, Aggie.” Agatha looked up to see Charles standing in her living room.

  “You…” she gasped. “You’re engaged. You never said a word. You never told me a thing.”

  “I wanted you to know,” said Charles. “Honestly, Aggie…”

  “It’s Agatha,” she growled, standing to face him. “You wanted me to know but you decided to tell everyone else first!” She flung the newspaper at him. “Everyone in the village must know. Everyone in the whole world knows except me! How long were you planning to keep it a secret from me? And who is she anyway? Who is this poor girl that you’ve hoodwinked?”

  “She’s really very nice,” Charles said, struggling to remain calm. “From a perfectly decent family. Her name is Mary. Mary Darlinda Brown-Field. Her father runs a very successful business. Come to the country sports thing on Wednesday. She’ll be there. I’d like you to meet her.”

  “Meet her?! You would like me to meet her, would you?!” Agatha shouted. “You want to introduce me to your latest sexual conquest? Well, I suppose that’s better than simply bumping into her in your bedroom!”

  “I just need to, um … take a look at the thingummy … upstairs,” said Roy, ducking out of the room. He snuck out of the front door and scurried off, heading for the Red Lion.

  “I was not aware,” Charles said, struggling to control a rising swell of anger, “that I was obliged to ask your permission about these things. You, after all, did not consult me about Chris Whatsisname.”

  “FIRKIN!”

  “What?”

  “Chris Firkin! That’s his name!” Agatha shrieked. “I should have known that Gustav’s spies would have reported back by now. And Chris is different. We haven’t been bonking each other’s brains out.”

  “Neither have Mary and I.”

  “Pardon? You haven’t slept with…” Agatha could scarcely believe her ears. “Are you serious? That’s like … like … buying a fantastic pair of shoes in London without trying them on, and then when you go to wear them to a fancy dinner in Barcelona, it turns out that they don’t fit and are completely useless!”

  “That actually happened, didn’t it?”

  “NEVER MIND!! Are you losing your touch, Charles? Or is she not interested in … sex?”

  “She’s interested. She just wants the right time and place and—”

  “After she’s got her talons into you, you mean? Was this all part of some pre-nuptial non-consummation, no-nookie marriage settlement contract?”

  “Actually, a marriage settlement has been agreed and—”

  “Well, of course it has! Let me guess—you’re going to get a whole pile of cash after the wedding but it all has to go into running the estate the way she and her daddy say. And you can’t touch a penny of her inheritance and she can’t promise any of it to you unless you’re a very good boy for a very long time. In the meantime, you can’t do so much as buy an air freshener for your BMW without their say-so!”

  “That is not how it will work at all. You are being facetious and unkind. All Mary and her family w
ant is…”

  “… is the kind of lifestyle they think they can buy, Charles. They think they’re using their money to take a huge leap up the social ladder into the world of the county set. They think they can splash some cash and become part of the aristocracy. You know that’s not the way it works. I could live in Carsely until the day I die and I will still be considered an outsider. I will never truly fit in. I will always feel like I don’t belong—and these are just normal villagers. You are taking money from these people and you know it will be a hundred times worse for them with your upper-crust elite than it will ever be for me here amongst ordinary people. Your new fiancée and her clan can never join that exclusive club. Your lot will always look down on them. I mean, they are in trade, aren’t they? What is the Brown-Field family business?”

  “Eminently respectable. They sell ladies’ products.”

  “Ladies’ products? What sort of products?”

  “Women’s things. ‘Forever Yours’ is one of their brands.”

  “They sell sanitary towels?”

  “Well, someone has to.”

  “Of course someone has to, Charles, but you don’t marry them. That’s how your acquaintances are going to see it, isn’t it? You don’t marry that sort. You know what your lot are like. It’s why you detest them. They will see this poor girl as a figure of fun. She may aspire to be one of them but she never will be. She is reaching for a lifestyle that she thinks you can provide, but you are sentencing her to a lifetime of misery.”

  “You are wrong, my dear. She is far more aware and pragmatic than you think.”

  “Oh, leave me alone, Charles. I can’t believe you are doing this. I thought we … I mean … Oh, just go, please.”

  “Very well,” said Charles, turning for the door, “but we should speak again. We have been through too much together to throw it all away. You should come on Wednesday, Aggie.”