The Quiche of Death

by M C Beaton

  Mrs. Simpson had left a jug of wildflowers on the middle of the kitchen table. Bless the woman. All Agatha's guilt about having lured her away from Mrs. Barr evaporated. The woman was a queen among cleaners.

  The following morning there was a knock at the door and Agatha groaned inwardly. Anyone else, she thought bitterly, would not be depressed, would expect some friend to be standing on the doorstep. But not Agatha Raisin. She knew it could only be the police.

  Detective Constable Wong stood there. "This is an informal call," he said. "May I come in?'

  "I suppose so," said Agatha ungraciously. "I was just about to have a glass of sherry, but I won't ask you to join me."

  "Why not?" he said with a grin. "I'm off duty."

  Agatha poured two glasses of sherry, threw some imitation logs on the fire and lit them. "What now?" she asked. "And what do I call you?

  "My name is Bill awanesh Wong. You may call me Bill."

  "An appropriate name. If you were older, I could call you the Old Bill. Now, what about the quiche?"

  "You're off the hook," said Bill. "We checked out your story. Mr. Economides, the owner of The Quicherie, remembers selling you that quiche. He cannot understand what happened. He buys his vegetables from the greengrocer's across the road. Greengrocer goes to the new Covent Garden at Vaux-hall every morning to buy his stock. Stuff comes from all over the country and abroad. Cowbane must have got in with the spinach. It's a tragic accident. Of course, we had to tell Mrs. Cummings-Browne where the quiche came from."

  Agatha groaned.

  "She might have accused you of murder otherwise."

  "But look here," protested Agatha, "she could have killed her husband by putting cowbane in my quiche."

  "Like most of the British population, I'd swear she couldn't tell a piece of cowbane from a palm tree," said Bill. "Also, it couldn't have been you. When you left that quiche, you had no idea it would be taken home and eaten by Cummings-Browne. So it couldn't have been you. And it couldn't have been Mrs. Cummings-Browne. Poisoning like that would need to be a cold-blooded, premeditated act. No, it was a horrible accident. Cowbane was only in part of the quiche."

  "I feel sorry for Mr. Economides," said Agatha. "Mrs. Cummings-Browne could sue him."

  "She has generously said she will not press charges. She is a very rich woman in her own right. She has the money. She had nothing to gain from his death."

  "But why did Cummings-Browne not drop dead at the tasting when he had a slice of it? Perhaps someone substituted another quiche. O r . . . let me think . . . wouldn't there have been some cowbane in that wedge, the juice, for instance?"

  "Yes, we wondered about that," said Bill. "Mrs. Cummings-Browne said her husband did feel a bit queasy after the tasting but she put that down to the amount of pre-competition drinks he had been knocking back."

  Agatha asked all about the case, all the details she had not asked before. He had been found dead in the morning. Then why, asked Agatha, had Mrs.

  Cummings-Browne gone straight up to bed?

  "Oh, that was because her husband was usually late, drinking at the Red Lion."

  "But that precious pair—or rather, it was Mrs. Cummings-Browne—told me they wouldn't be seen dead in the Red Lion. Mind you, that was before they socked me for a disgracefully expensive load of rubbish at the Feathers."

  "He drinks at the Red Lion, all right, but Mrs. Cummings-Browne owns twenty-five percent of the Feathers."

  "The cow! I'll be damned. Anyway, how did you guess I never cooked that quiche? For you did, you know, even before I baked one."

  "The minute I saw there wasn't a single baking ingredient in the kitchen I was sure." He laughed. "I asked you to make one to be absolutely sure. You should have seen your face!"

  "Oh, very funny."

  He looked at her curiously. What an odd woman she was, he thought. Her shiny brown, well-groomed hair was not permed but cut in a sort of Dutch bob that somehow suited her square, rather truculent face. Her body was square and stocky and her legs surprisingly good. "What," asked Bill, "was so special to a recently ex-high-powered business woman like yourself about winning a village competition?"

  "I felt out of place," said Agatha bleakly. "I wanted to make my mark on the village."

  He laughed happily, his eyes closing into slits. "You've done just that. Mrs. Cummings-Browne knows now you cheated and so does Fred Griggs, the local bobby, and he's a prize gossip."

  Agatha felt too humiliated to speak. So much for her dream home. She would need to sell up. How could she face anyone in the village?

  He looked at her sympathetically. "If you want to make your mark on the village, Mrs. Raisin, you could try becoming popular."

  Agatha looked at him in amazement. Fame, money and power were surely the only things needed to make one's mark on the world.

  "It comes slowly," he said. "All you have to do is start to like people. If they like you back, regard it as a bonus."

  Really, what odd types they had in the police force these days, thought Agatha, surprised. Did she dislike people? Of course she didn't. Well, so far the only people she had taken a dislike to in Yokel Country, she thought savagely, were old fart-face next door and Mrs. Cummings-Browne and the dear deceased.

  "How old are you?" she asked.

  "Twenty-three," said Bill.

  "Chinese?"

  "Half. Father is Hong Kong Chinese and Mother is from Evesham. I was brought up in Gloucestershire." He rose to go but for some reason Agatha wanted him to stay.

  "Are you married?" she asked.

  "No, Mrs. Raisin."

  "Well, sit down for a moment," said Agatha urgently, "and tell me about yourself."

  Again a flicker of sympathy appeared in his eyes. He sat down and began to talk about his short career in the police force and Agatha listened, soothed by his air of certainty and calm. Unknown to her, it was the start of an odd friendship. "So," he said at last, "I really must go. Case finished. Case solved. Nasty accident Life goes on."

  The next day, to escape from the eyes of the villagers, eyes that would accuse her of being a cheat, Agatha drove to London. She was anxious about Mr. Economides. Agatha, a regular take-away eater, had frequented Mr. Economides's shop over the years. Perhaps some of Bill Wong's remarks had struck home, but Agatha had realized Mr. Economides, although their relationship had been that of customer and salesman, was as near a friend as she had got. The shop contained two small tables and chairs for customers who liked to have coffee, and when the shop was quiet, Mr. Economides had often treated Agatha to a coffee and told her tales of his numerous family.

  But when she arrived, the shop was busy and Mr. Economides was guarded in his answers as his competent hairy hands packed quiche and cold cuts for the customers. Yes, Mrs. Cummings-Browne had called in person to assure him that she would not be suing him. Yes, it had been a tragic accident. And now, if Mrs. Raisin would excuse him . . . ?

  Agatha left, feeling rather flat. London, which had so recently enclosed her like a many-coloured coat, now stretched out in lonely streets full of strangers all about her. She went to Foyle's bookshop in the Charing Cross Road and looked up a book on poisonous plants. She studied a picture of cowbane. It was an innocuous-looking plant with a ridged stem and flower heads composed of groups of small white flowers. She was about to buy the book when she suddenly thought, why bother? It had been an accident, a sad accident.

  She pottered around a few other shops in London before returning to her car and joining the long line of traffic that was belching its way out of London. Reluctant to return to the village before dark, she cut off the motorway and headed for Oxford and parked her car in St. Giles and made her way to the Randolph Hotel for tea. She was the only customer, odd in that most popular of hotels. She settled back in a huge sofa and drank tea and ate crumpets served to her by a young maiden with a Pre-Raphaelite face. Faintly from outside came the roar of traffic ploughing up Beaumont Street past the Ashmoleum Museum. The hotel had a dim ec
clesiastical air, as if haunted by the damp souls of dead deans. She pushed the last crumpet around on her plate. She did not feel like eating it. She needed a purpose in life, she thought, an aim. Would it not be marvelous if Cummings-Browne turned out to have been murdered after all? And she, Agatha Raisin, solved the case? She would become known throughout the Cotswolds. People would come to her. She would be respected. Had it been an accident? What sort of marriage had the Cummings Brownes really had where she could come home and trot off to bed while her husband lay dead behind the sofa? Why separate bedrooms? Bill Wong had told her that. Why should Mr. Economides's excellent and famous quiche suddenly contain cowbane when over the years he had not had one complaint? Perhaps she could ask around. Just a few questions. No harm in that.

  Feeling more cheerful than she had for a long time, she paid the bill and tipped the gentle waitress lavishly. The sun was sinking low behind the trees as she motored through the village and turned off at Lilac Lane. Shefished out the spare door key and then she heard her phone ringing, sharp and insistent.

  She swore under her breath as she fumbled with the key. It was the first time her phone had rung. She tumbled in the door and felt her way towards it in the gloom.

  "Roy here," came the famillar mincing voice of her ex-assistant.

  "How lovely to hear from you," cried Agatha in tones she had never used before to the young man.

  "Fact is, Aggie, I was hoping I could come down and see you this weekend."

  "Of course. You're welcome."

  "I've got this Australian friend, Steve, wants to see the countryside. Do you mind if he comes too?"

  "More the merrier. Are you driving here?"

  "Thought we'd take the train and come down Friday night."

  "Wait a bit," said Agatha, "I've got a timetable here." She fumbled in her bag. "Yes, there's a through train leaves Paddington at six-twenty in the evening. Don't need to change anywhere. Gets in at Moreton-inMarsh—"

  "Where?"

  "Moreton-in-Marsh."

  "Too Agatha Christie for words, darling."

  "And I'll meet you at the station."

  "It's the May Day celebrations at the weekend, Aggie, and Steve wants to look at maypoles and morris dancers and all that sort of thing."

  "I haven't had time to look at any posters, Roy. I've been involved in a death "

  "Did one of the clodhoppers try to mumble with you with his gruttock, luv?"

  "Nothing like that. I'll tell you all about it when I see you."

  Angela whistled to herself as she cracked open one of her cookery books and began to prepare the fish she had bought the day before. There seemed to be so many exotic recipes. Surely one just fried the stuff. So she did and by the time it was ready, realized she had not put the potatoes on to boil or cooked the cauliflower. She threw a packet of mircrowaveable chips in the micro and opened a can of bright-green peas. It all tasted delicious to Agatha's undemanding palate when she finally sat down to eat.

  The next day, she called in at Harvey's and studied the posters at the door. Yes, there was to be morris dancing, maypole dancing, and a fair in the village on the Saturday. People nodded and smiled to her. No one said "quiche" or anything dreadful like that. Cheerfully Agatha trotted home but was waylaid by Mrs. Barr before she could get to her own garden gate.

  "I thought you would have been at the inquest yesterday at Mircester," said Mrs. Barr, her eyes cold and watchful.

  "No one asked me," said Agatha. "It was an accident. I suppose the police evidence was enough."

  "Not enough for me," said Mrs. Barr coolly. "Nothing came out about the way you cheated at that competition."

  Curiosity overcame rancour in Agatha's bosom. "Why not? Surely it was mentioned that it had been bought in a shop in Chelsea?"

  "Oh, yes, that came out but not a word of condemnation for you being a cheat and a liar. Poor Mrs. Cummings-Browne broke down completely. We don't need your sort in this village."

  "And what was the verdict?"

  "Accidental death, but you killed him, Agatha Raisin. You killed him with your nasty foreign quiche, just as much as if you had knifed him."

  Agatha's eyes blazed. "I'll kill you, you malicious harridan, if you don't bugger off."

  She marched to her own cottage, blinking tears from her eyes, appalled at her own shock and dismay and weakness.

  Thank God Roy was coming. Dear Roy, thought Agatha sentimentally, forgetting she had always considered him a tiresomely effeminate young man whom she would have sacked had he not had a magic touch with the peculiar world of pop music.

  There came a knock at the door and Agatha cringed, wondering if some other nasty local was about to berate her. But when she opened it, it was Bill Wong who stood on the step.

  "Came to tell you about the inquest," he said. "I called yesterday but you were out."

  "I was seeing friends" said Agatha loftily. "In fact, two of them are coming to stay with me for the weekend. But come in."

  "What was the Barr female on about?" he asked curiously as he followed Agatha into her kitchen.

  "Accusing me of murder," mumbled Agatha, putting groceries away in the cupboards. "Like a coffee?"

  "Yes, please. So the inquest is over and Mr. Cummings-Browne is to be cremated and his ashes cast to the four winds on Salisbury Plain in memory of his army days."

  "I believe Mrs. Cummings-Browne collapsed at the inquest," said Agatha.

  "Yes, yes, she did. Two sugars please and just a dash of milk. Most affecting."

  Agatha turned at looked at him, her interest suddenly quickening. "You think she was acting?"

  "Maybe. But I was surprised he was so generally mourned. There were quite a lot of ladies there sobbing into their handkerchiefs."

  "With their husbands? Or on their own?"

  "On their own."

  Agatha put a mug of coffee down in front of him, poured one for herself and sat down at the kitchen table opposite him.

  "Something's bothering you," said Agatha.

  "Oh, the case is closed and I have a lot of work to do. There's an epidemic of joy-riders in Mircester."

  "What time did Mrs. Cummings-Browne go to bed, the night her husband died?" asked Agatha.

  "Just after midnight or thereabouts."

  "But the Red Lion closes sharp at eleven and it's only a few minutes' walk away."

  "She said he often stayed out late, drinking with friends."

  Agatha's eyes were shrewd. "Oho! And weeping women at the inquest. Don't tell me old jug ears was a philanderer."

  "There's no evidence of that."

  "And yet Mrs. Cartwright always won the competition. Why?"

  "Perhaps her baking was the best."

  "No one bakes quiche better than Mr. Economides," said Agatha firmly.

  "But you are the incomer. More natural to give a prize to one of the locals."

  "Still..."

  "I can see from the look in your eye, Mrs. Raisin, that you would like it to be murder after all and so clear your conscience."

  "Why did you call to tell me about the inquest?"

  "I thought you would be interested. There's a paragraph about it in today's Gloucestershire Telegraph."

  "Have you got it?" demanded Agatha. "Let me see."

  He fished in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled newspaper. "Page three."

  Agatha turned to page three.

  At the coroner's court in Mircester yesterday [she read], a verdict of accidental death by eating poisoned quiche was pronounced. The victim was Mr. Reginald Cummings-Browne, fifty-eight, of Plumtrees Cottage, Carsely. Giving evidence, Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes said that cowbane had been introduced into a spinach quiche by accident. The quiche had been bought by a newcomer to the village, Mrs. Agatha Raisin. She had bought the quiche from a London delicatessen and had entered it in a village competition as her own baking, a competition at which the late Mr. Cummings-Browne was the judge.

  The owner of the delicatessen, Mr. Economides, h
ad stated to the police that the cowbane must have become mixed with the spinach by accident. It was stressed that no blame fell on the unfortunate Mr. Economides, a Greek immigrant, aged forty-five, who owns The Quicherie at the World's End, Chelsea.

  Mrs. Vera Cummings-Browne, fifty-two, collapsed in court.

  Mr. Cummings-Browne was a well-known figure in the Cotswolds . ..

  "And blah, blah, blah," said Agatha, putting the paper down. "Hardly a paragraph."

  "You're lucky," said Bill Wong. "If there hadn't been riots on that estate in Mircester and two deaths, I am sure some enterprising reporter would have been around to find out about the cheating incomer of Carsley. You got off lucky."

  Agatha sighed. "I'll never live it down, unless I can prove it was murder."

  "Don't go looking for more trouble. That's why there's a police force. Best let everyone forget about your part in the death. Economides is lucky as well. With all this going on in Russia, not one London paper has bothered to pick up the story."

  "I still wonder why you came?"

  He drained the last of his coffee and stood up.

  "Perhaps I like you, Agatha Raisin."

  Agatha blushed for about the first time in her life. He gave her an amused look and let himself out.

  FOUR

  Agatha felt quite nervous as she waited for the Cotswold Express to pull in at Moreton-in-Marsh Station. What would this friend of Roy's be like? Would she like him? Agatha's main worry was that the friend might not like her, but she wasn't even going to admit to that thought.

  The weather was calm but still cold. The train, oh, miracle of miracles, was actually on time. Roy descended and rushed to embrace her. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt which bore the legend i HAVE BEEN USED. Following him came a slight young man. He had thick black hair and a heavy moustache and wore a light-blue denim jacket, jeans, and high-heeled cowboy boots. Butch Cassidy comes to Moreton-in-Marsh. This then was Steve. He gave her a limp handshake and stood looking at her with doggy eyes.

  "Welcome to the Cotswolds " said Agatha. "Roy tells me you're Australian. On holiday?"

  "No, I am a systems analyst," said Steve in the careful English accents of an Eliza Doolittle who hadn't yet quite got it. "I work in the City."