The Quiche of Death

by M C Beaton

  "Let's go along to the pub for a drink," said Agatha, after Roy had been talking about the days when he worked for her, elaborating every small incident for Tracy's benefit. Agatha wondered whether to offer Tracy a loose dress to wear but decided against it. The girl would take it as a criticism of what she was wearing.

  In the pub, Agatha introduced them to her newfound friends and Tracy blossomed in the undemanding company which only expected her to talk about the weather.

  The heat was certainly bad enough to be exciting. The sun beat down fiercely outside. One man volunteered that a temperature of 129 degrees Fahrenheit had been recorded at Cheltenham.

  Back at the cottage and Tracy helped with the lunch, her high heels stabbing little holes into the kitchen linoleum until Agatha begged her to take them off. There was some shade in the garden after lunch and so they moved there, drinking coffee and listening idly to the sounds of the new neighbour moving in.

  "Don't you even want to peek over the hedge or take a cake along or something?" asked Roy. "Aren't you curious?"

  Agatha shook her head. "I've seen the estate agent and this house goes up for sale next week."

  "You're selling?" Tracy looked at her in amazement. "Why?"

  "I'm going back to London."

  Tracy looked around the sunny garden and then up to the Cotswold Hills above the village, shimmering in a heat haze. She shook her head in bewilderment. "Leave all this? I've never seen anywhere more beautiful in all me life." She looked back at the cottage and struggled to express her thoughts. "It's so old, so settled. There's somethink peaceful about it, know what I mean? Of course, I s'pose it's diff'rent for you, Mrs. Raisin. You've probably travelled and seen all sorts of beautiful places."

  Yes, Carsely was beautiful, thought Agatha reluctantly. The village was blessed with many underground springs, and so, in the middle of all the drought around, it glowed like a green emerald.

  "She doesn't like it," crowed Roy, "because people keep trying to murder her."

  Tracy begged to be told all about it and so Agatha began at the beginning, talking at first to Tracy and then to herself, for there was something nagging at the back of her mind.

  That evening, Roy took them out for dinner to a pretentious restaurant in Mircester. Tracy only drank mineral water, for she was to drive Roy home. She seemed intimidated by the restaurant but admiring of Roy, who was snapping his fingers at the waiters and, as far as Agatha was concerned, behaving like a first-class creep. Yes, thought Agatha, Roy will marry Tracy and she will probably think she is happy and Roy will turn out to be someone I can't stand. I wish I had never got him that publicity.

  When she waved goodbye to them, it was with a feeling of relief. The time was rapidly approaching when Roy would phone expecting an invitation and she would make some excuse.

  But of course she wouldn't need to bother. For she would be back in London.

  ELEVEN

  On Monday morning, Agatha rose late, wondering why she had slept so long and wishing she had risen earlier to catch any coolness of the day. She put on a loose cotton dress over the minimum of underwear, went downstairs and took a mug of coffee out into the garden.

  She had been plagued with dreams of Maria Borrow, Barbara James, and Ella Cartwright, who had appeared as the three witches in Macbeth. "I have summoned the evil spirits to kill you," Maria Borrow had croaked.

  Agatha sighed andfinishedher coffee and went for a walk to the butcher's which was near the vicarage. The sign saying "New Delhi" had been taken down. There was no evidence of the new owner, but Mrs. Mason and two other women were standing on the step, carrying cakes to welcome the newcomer. Agatha walked on, reflecting that nobody had called on her when she had first arrived.

  She was about to go into the butcher's when she stiffened. A Little way away, Vera Cummings-Browne was standing talking to Barbara James, who had a Scottie on a leash. Agatha dived for cover into the butcher's shop and almost collided with Mrs. Bloxby.

  "Seen your new neighbour yet?" asked Mrs. Bloxby.

  "No, not yet," said Agatha, keeping a wary eye on the door in case Barbara should leap in and savage her. "Who is he?"

  "A retired colonel. Mr. James Lace^ AQ doesn't use his title. Very charming."

  "I'm not interested," snapped Agatha. Mrs. Bloxby looked at her in pained surprise and Agatha coloured.

  "Sorry," she mumbled. "I just saw Vera CummingsBrowne with Barbara James. Barbara James tried to attack me."

  "She always had a dreadful temper," said Mrs. Bloxby placidly. "Mrs. Cummings-Browne is just back from Tuscany. She is very brown and looks fit."

  "I didn't even know she was away," commented Agatha. "I'm wondering what to buy. My cooking skills are still very limited."

  "Get some of those lamb chops," advised the vicar's wife, "and put them under the griU with a Little mint. I have fresh mint in the garden. Come back with me for a coffee and I'll give you some. You just cook the chops slowly on either side until they are brown. Very simple. And I shall give you some of my mint sauce, too."

  Agatha obediently bought the chops but hesitated in the doorway. "Do you mind seeing if the coast is clear?"

  Mrs. Bloxby looked out. "They've both gone."

  Over the coffee-cups in the vicarage garden, under the shade of a cypress tree, Mrs. Bloxby asked, "Are you stiU determined to move?"

  "Yes," said Agatha bleakly, wishing some of her old ambition and drive would come back to her. "The estate agents should be putting a 'For Sale' board up this morning."

  Mrs. Bloxby looked at her over the rim of her coffee-cup. "Strange how things work out, Mrs. Raisin. I thought your being here had something to do with Divine Providence."

  Agatha gave a startled grunt.

  "First I felt you had been brought here for your own benefit. You struck me as a lady who had never known any real love or affection. You seemed to carry a weight of loneliness about with you."

  Agatha stared at her in deep embarrassment.

  "Then of course there is the death of Mr. Cummings-Browne. My husband, like the police, maintains it was an accident. I felt that God had sent you here to find out the culprit."

  "Meaning you think it's murder!"

  "I've tried not to. So much more comfortable to believe it an accident and settle back into our ways. But there is something, some atmosphere, something wrong. I sense evil in this village. Now you are going, no one will ask questions, no one will care, and the evil will remain. Call me silly and superstitious if you like, but I believe the taking of a human Ufe is a grievous sin which should be punished by law." She gave a little laugh. "So I shall pray that if murder has been done, then the culprit will be revealed."

  "But you've got nothing concrete to go on?" asked Agatha.

  She shook her head. "Just a feeling. But you are going, so that is that. I feel that Bill Wong shares my doubts."

  "He's the one that has been urging me to leave the whole thing alone!"

  "That is because he is fond of you and does not want to see you get hurt."

  Agatha turned the conversation over in her mind. The "For Sale" notice was up when she got back, giving her a temporary feeling, as if she had already left the village.

  She got out a large notebook and pen and sat down at the kitchen table and began to write down everything that had happened since she came to the village. The long hot day wore on and she wrote busily, going back and back over her notes, looking for some clue. Then she tapped the pen on the paper. For a start, there was one Little thing. The body had been found on Sunday. On Tuesday—it must have been Tuesday, for on the Wednesday the police had told her that Mrs. Cummings-Browne did not mean to sue The Quicherie—the bereaved widow had gone to Chelsea in person. Agatha sat back and chewed the end of her pen. Now wasn't that odd behaviour? If your husband has just been murdered and you are collapsing about the place with grief and everyone is talking about how stricken you are, how do you summon up the energy to go all the way to London? She could just as easily
have phoned. Why? Agatha glanced at the kitchen clock. What exactly had Vera CummingsBrowne said to Mr. Economides? She went to the phone, Ufted the receiver and put it back down again. Despite his confession about his relative without the work permit, the Greek had still looked guarded. The shop didn't close till eight. Agatha decided to motor up to London and catch him before he shut the shop for the evening.

  She had just locked the door behind her when she found on turning round that a family consisting of ferrety husband, plump wife, and two spotty teenagers were surveying her.

  "We've come to look round the house," said the man.

  "You can't." Agatha pushed past the family.

  "It says 'For Sale,'" he complained.

  "It's already sold," lied Agatha. She heaved the board out of the ground and dropped it on the grass. Then she got into her car and drove off, leaving the family staring after her.

  The hell with it, thought Agatha, I wouldn't want to inflict that lot on the village anyway.

  She made London in good time, for most of the traffic was going the other way.

  She parked on a double yellow line outside The Quicherie.

  She went into the shop. Mr. Economides was clearing his cold shelf of quiche for the night. He looked at Agatha and again that wariness was in his eyes.

  "I want to talk to you," said Agatha bluntly. "Don't worry," she lied. "I've got friends in the Home Office. You won't come to any harm."

  He took off his apron and walked around the counter. The both sat down at one of his little tables. There was no offer of coffee. His dark eyes surveyed her mournfully.

  "Look, tell me exactly what happened between you and Mrs. Cummings-Browne when she called on you."

  "Can't we forget the whole thing?" he pleaded. "All ended well. No bad publicity in the London papers."

  "A man was poisoned," said Agatha. "Don't worry your head about immigration. I'll keep you out of it. Just teU me."

  "All right. She came in in the morning. I forget what day it was. But mid-morning. She started shouting that I had poisoned her husband and that she would sue me for every penny I'd got. She told me about the quiche you had bought. I cried and pleaded innocence. I threw myself on her mercy. I told her the quiche was not one of mine but had come down from Devon. I told her my cousin grew all the vegetables for his shop in his own market garden. Some of that cowbane must have got mixed in with the spinach. I told her about my cousin's son-in-law. She went very quiet. Then she said she was overwrought. She said she hardly knew what she was saying. She was a different woman, calm and sad. No action would be taken against me or my cousin, she said.

  "But the next day, she came back."

  "What!"

  Agatha leaned forward, clenching her hands in excitement.

  "She said that if I ever told anyone that the quiche had come from Devon, then she would change her mind and sue and she would also report my relative to the Home Office and get him deported."

  "Goodness!" Agatha looked at him in bewilderment. "She must be mad." Two people came into the shop. Mr. Economides rose to his feet. "You will not tell? I only told you before because I thought the whole thing was over."

  "No, no," gabbled Agatha.

  She went out into the heat and drove off, heading automatically back to the Cotswolds, her brain in a turmoil. Vera Cummings-Browne didn't want the police to know that the quiche had come from Devon. Why?

  And then the light dawned. A phrase from the book on poisonous plants leaped into her mind. "Cowbane is to be found in marshy parts of Britain . . . East Anglia, West Midlands, and southern Scotland." But not Devon.

  But, wait a bit. The police had been thorough. They had searched her kitchen and even her drains for traces of cowbane. And they had said that Vera Cummings-Browne probably didn't know cowbane from a palm tree. But couldn't she just have looked up a book, as she, Agatha, had done? If she had, she would not only know what it looked like and where to get it, she would know it did not grow in Devon.

  When she got home, Agatha wondered whether to phone Bill Wong but then decided against it. He would have all the answers. There had been no trace of cowbane in Vera's house. Her brain had been unhinged by the death and that was why she had gone to see Economides.

  She put the estate agent's display board back in place and then tried to get a good night's sleep, but the days and days of heat had made the old stone walls of her cottage radiate like a furnace.

  Agatha awoke, tired and listless, but dutifully got out her notes again and added what she had found out.

  Cowbane. What about the local library? she thought with a jolt. Would they know whether Vera CummingsBrowne had taken out a book on poisonous plants? Would there be a record? Of course there must be! How else could they write to people who had failed to return books?

  As she trudged along to the library, Agatha reflected that her standard of dressing was slipping. In London, she had used Margaret Thatcher as a role model, rather than Joan Collins or any other British beauty, favouring crisp dresses and business suits. Now her loose print dress flopped about her and her bare feet were thrust into sandals.

  The library was a low stone building. A plaque above the door stated it had been originally the village workhouse. Agatha pushed open the door and went in. She recognized the lady behind the desk as being Mrs. Josephs, one of the members of the Carsely Ladies' Society.

  Mrs. Josephs smiled brightly. "Were you looking for anything in particular, Mrs. Raisin? We've got the latest Dick Francis."

  Agatha plunged in. "I was upset by Mr. CummingsBrowne's death," she said.

  "As were we all," murmured Mrs. Josephs.

  "I'd hate a mistake like that to happen again," said Agatha. "Have you a book on poisonous plants?"

  "Now, let me see." Mrs. Josephs extracted a microfiche nervously from a pile and slotted it into the viewing screen. "Yes, Jerome on Poisonous Plants of the British Isles. Number K-543. Over to your left by the window, Mrs. Raisin."

  Agatha searched the shelves until she found the book. She opened it at the front and studied the dates stamped there. It had last been taken out a whole ten days before the death. Still...

  "Could you tell me who was the last to take this out, Mrs. Josephs?"

  "Why?" The librarian looked anxious. "I hope it wasn't Mrs. Boggle. She will leave the pages stuck together with marmalade."

  "I was thinking of getting up a lecture on local poisonous plants," said Agatha, improvising. "Whoever had it out before might show equal interest," said Agatha, looking at the illustrations in the book as she spoke.

  "Oh, well, let me see. We still have the old-fashioned card system." She drew out long drawers and flicked through the listed book cards until she drew out the one on poisonous plants. "That was last taken out by card holder number 27. We don't have many members. I fear this is a television village. Let me see. Number 27. Why, that's Mrs. CummingsBrowne!" Her mouth fell a little open and she stared through her glasses at Agatha.

  And at that moment, the Ubrary door opened and Vera Cummings-Browne walked in. Agatha seized the book and returned it to the shelves and then said brightly to Mrs. Josephs, "I'll let you know about the Dick Francis."

  "You'll need to join the library first, Mrs. Raisin. Would you like a card?"

  "Later," muttered Agatha. She looked over her shoulder. Vera was standing some distance away, looking through the returned books. "Not a word," hissed Agatha and shot out.

  So she did know about cowbane, thought Agatha triumphantly. And she certainly knew what it looked like. She saw clearly in her mind's eye the coloured illustration in the book. Then she stopped in the middle of the main street, too shocked to notice that a handsome middle-aged man had come out of the butcher's and was looking at her curiously.

  She had seen cowbane recently, but in black and white. What? Where? She began to walk home, cudgelling her brains.

  And then, just at her garden gate, she had it. The slide show. Mr. Jones's slide show. Mrs. CummingsBrowne getting th
e prize for the bestflowerarrangement, an arty thing of wild flowersand garden flowers and, snakes and bastards, with a piece of cowbane right in the middle of it!

  The handsome middle-aged man was turning in at the gate of what had so recently been Mrs. Barr's cottage. He was the new tenant, James Lacey.

  "Must find Jones," said Agatha aloud. "Must find Jones."

  Batty, thought James Lacey. I don't know that I like having a neighbour like that.

  Into Harvey's went Agatha. "Where do I find Mr. Jones, the one who takes the photographs?"

  "That'U be the second cottage along Mill Pond Edge," said the woman behind the till. "Do be uncommon hot, Mrs. Raisin."

  "Screw the weather," said Agatha furiously. "Where's MiU Pond Edge?"

  "Second lane on your right as you go out the door."

  "I know the heat's getting us down," said the woman in Harvey's to Mrs. Cummings-Browne later, "but there was no need for Mrs. Raisin to be so rude. I was only trying to tell her where Mr. Jones lives."

  Agatha was fortunate in findingMr. Jones at home because he was also a keen gardener and liked to spend most of the day touring the local nurseries. He had all his photographs neatlyfiled and found the one Agatha asked for without any trouble.

  She looked greedily at the flower arrangement. "Mind if I keep this for a few days?"

  "No, not at all," said Mr. Jones.

  And Agatha shot off without warning him not to say anything to Mrs. Cummings-Browne.