by M C Beaton
He pointed. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
“Yes, so what? Honestly, old man, you’ve changed. Can’t remember you firing questions at one the whole bloody time.”
“Sorry,” said Charles and began to chatter lightly about people they both knew, lacing it with enough scurrilous gossip that George forgot about all those strange questions and looked sorry when Charles said he had to leave.
Agatha was lucky in that the police, sure that Harrison Peterson’s death had been a suicide, had not ordered an intensive forensic search of the room and the stairs leading to it. By the time they got around to it, the room and the stairs had been scrubbed clean and the room itself had a new tenant. She had been worried about their footprints on the stairs or a stray one of her hairs somewhere in the room.
Emma was being singularly sweet to Agatha that morning. Agatha must never guess what she, Emma, had planned for her, although she reminded herself from time to time that it was only a fantasy to dispel her jealousy and rage.
Charles came into the office during the morning and gave Agatha his report of Felicity Felliet. He had decided not to bother explaining to Emma why he was still around. “Paris, again,” said Agatha. “I wonder what she was doing the night of the party.”
“We could run over and ask her. Plane there, plane back. One day should do it.”
Emma dug her newly painted fingernails into her hands. The pair of them in romantic Paris!
“What about tomorrow?” asked Agatha.
“It’ll need to be the day after. I’m hosting the village fete at the house. Anyway, what now?”
“I think we should try to catch Bill Wong. See if he can tell us anything more. What are you doing, Emma? What about that missing cat, Biggies?”
“Just about to go out on it,” said Emma.
Bill Wong saw them in one of the interviewing rooms. “I hope you have something to tell me,” he said. “I’m not supposed to help private detectives.”
“We heard a rumour that Harrison Peterson’s death was murder,” said Agatha.
“Nothing’s in the papers yet,” said Bill. “Where did you hear that?”
“I can’t tell you that, Bill.”
“Then I can’t tell you anything either.”
“Probably because you don’t know anything,” said Charles.
“Look.” Bill surveyed both of them. “Wilkes happened to be around when I got the message that you wanted to see me. He told me to get rid of you, fast. On the other hand, I’ll be in the Wheat-sheaf at lunch-time.”
“See you there. Come along, Charles.”
As Emma trudged around the streets of Mircester, looking for the missing Biggies, she turned over what Charles had said that morning. He was hosting a village fete. She could mingle with the crowds and watch him and see if there was any other female he was interested in. She had read up on him in the local newspapers and learned that he had been married to a Frenchwoman and was now divorced.
It would be better fun than looking for this cat. Agatha had two cats. Emma was beginning to hate cats.
She turned into the street where Biggies’s owner lived. Emma peered over the hedge into the garden. Biggies was sunning himself on the lawn. She thought quickly. She knew the owner, a widow, Mrs. Porteous, would be out at work.
Emma opened the garden gate and pounced on the sleeping cat. She thrust it into the cat carrier she was carrying with her. She decided to take Biggies home with her. He could be considered missing for another day and that would give her time to go to the fete. It was amazing how many cat owners didn’t just wait for their precious animals to reappear.
She put the carrier with the now angry cat in the back of her car, which she had parked a few streets away. Then she wondered uneasily if Mrs. Porteous knew her cat had returned and had left it out in the garden while she went to work. Emma flipped open her address book and found the work number and dialled.
“This is Emma Comfrey,” she said. “Just to let you know we’re still looking.”
“Oh, bless you,” said Mrs. Porteous. Her voice became quavery. “I worry the whole time about him. I fear he might be dead.”
“There, there,” said Emma. “Em working all day long looking for him.”
Bill Wong had nothing to tell them that they didn’t know already. But they were able to tell him about Joyce Peterson’s violent partner.
“She didn’t tell us she was living with anyone,” said Bill. “We had a devil of a job tracing her. How did you catch up with her?” “Someone told us.”
“I wonder who that someone was. Anyway, you say this Mark is violent. What gave you that idea?”
“She had an enormous bruise on her cheek. She said she had walked into an open cupboard door, which is a battered woman’s variation on the theme of41 fell downstairs’.”
“We’d better check him out. Got a second name for him?”
“No, just Mark. He might have killed Harrison Peterson in a jealous rage.”
“I hope not,” said Bill.
“Why?”
“Because that would mean that we would still be left with the shooting at the Laggat-Browns. This Mark would have ho reason to want to kill the daughter. It’s one of those cases that’s going to drag on and on. I haven’t had time to do anything in the garden, and despite last night’s rain, it’s as dry as a bone. Do you think there’s something in this global warming business?”
Said Charles, “It was evidently as hot as hell in medieval times. Give it another hundred or so years and we’ll have another mini ice age.”
“What now?” asked Charles after they had said goodbye to Bill.
“Paris, I suppose. While you’re playing lord of the manor at your fete, I’ll take a day off and run up to London and take Roy out.”
“Shouldn’t you be doing some work?”
“I’ve got staff. Why keep a kennelful of dogs and bark myself?”
Emma’s face lit up when Agatha said she was going up to London to see Roy on the following day.
“Such a dear boy,” she said, and added coyly, “Give him my love.”
“Will do.”
With Agatha out of the road, thought Emma, she could deliver the pesky cat to its grateful owner and have the whole day free.
SEVEN
WHAT had happened to London? Agatha wondered, and not for the first time. Had the streets always been so dirty? Perhaps if she were living in London again, she would not notice.
She took Roy to the Caviar Restaurant in Piccadilly. Agatha did not like caviar and thought it a waste of money, but she was anxious not to lose Roy’s friendship and knew that the very prices on the menu would delight him.
Roy listened carefully while she told him that Peterson had been murdered.
“There’s been nothing in the papers,” said Roy. He was wearing a very conventional business suit, shirt and tie.
“Probably the police are keeping it quiet. Honestly, I’ve been going over everything in my head.”
“The murderer must have been someone Peterson knew,” said Roy, spooning up caviar, and hoping the people walking along Piccadilly on the other side of the large plate-glass window were envying him. “I mean, you didn’t say anything about the door of his room being forced. He must have phoned someone else besides you. How else could anyone have found out? Unless your phone is bugged.”
“You’ve been reading too many spy stories.”
“Believe me, I have recently been talking to a real-life spy, and truth is stranger than fiction.”
“What real-life spy?”
“Oh, just someone I met. I’m not supposed to talk about it. Have they buried the body?”
“I don’t think so. There’ll be another autopsy if the police think anything could have been missed in the first one.”
“Might be worth your while to look into that boyfriend of Joyce Peterson’s. He sounds a violent sort of chap.”
“I might call on her tomorrow when I know he’s out at work. But I do
n’t think so. I mean, someone had a very sophisticated sniper rifle. You’d almost think someone was being paid to do it.”
“You mean, like a professional assassin?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“Can I have lobster?”
“Have anything you like.”
“Emma’s quite a dear, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she turned out to be a very good worker.”
“Hidden depths, there.”
“I don’t think so,” said Agatha Raisin, who prided herself on being a good judge of character. “I think what you see is what you get.”
Emma parked her car in a field near Barfield House that had been turned into a temporary car-park for the day. She was wearing a wide floppy hat and sunglasses, which she considered sufficient disguise.
Stands were briskly selling home-made jams and jellies, cakes, home-made wine, wooden salad bowls, country clothes and second-hand books. There was no entrance fee, but programmes of events cost two pounds each. Emma studied the programme. There were to be choir singing a hundred-yard sprint, wellie throwing, ferret racing, dog and horse judging competitions and various other events. The wellie throwing was new to Emma, but she guessed it would be to see who could throw a Wellington boot the farthest.
Emma felt thirsty and headed towards a large refreshment tent. Her heart beat quickly when she saw Charles. He was sitting at a table near the entrance, selling raffle tickets. She longed to go over to him but was frightened that if he recognized her she would need to think up another lie, and besides, he might tell Agatha she had been at the fete instead of working. She bought a cup of tea and then sat in a corner of the tent and watched him hungrily. It would be marvellous if she were there by his side, greeting people, hanging on to his arm.
A pretty girl came up to Charles. He stood up and kissed her enthusiastically on both cheeks, and then she took his place at the table while Charles went outside.
Emma finished her tea and followed. Charles went up to a platform overlooking a meadow and announced the start of the hundred-yard sprint. Emma stayed and watched while he judged event after event. The sun beat down and her legs began to ache. She turned around to see if there was somewhere she could sit down and keep Charles in view.
And then she saw a fortune-teller’s tent.
Emma was a great believer in astrology, clairvoyants and fortune-tellers. Perhaps Madame Zora could tell her whether there was any hope with Charles.
Madame Zora was Gustav, and Gustav was in a bad temper. Normally fond of his employer, he decided that day that he hated him. The woman from the village who had volunteered to play Madame Zora had fallen ill and Charles had insisted Gustav get dressed up and play the part.
Emma had to wait in a queue. Gustav was a big success. As the day grew hotter and his temper higher, his predictions became more and more bizarre. Word spread around the fete and people became anxious to consult this outrageous fortune-teller.
At last it was Emma’s turn. She pushed aside the flap and walked in. The tent was dark and so she removed her sunglasses. It was delightfully eerie, she thought. The tent was almost completely dark except for a scented candle burning on a small table in front of Madame Zora, whose face was shadowed by a colourful shawl over “her” head.
“Sit down,” said Gustav. He recognized her as that batty female who had called on Charles unannounced. Now, what had Charles said about her? He had said, “Don’t be too hard on her, Gustav. She thinks she’s had a miserable life. Bullied by her husband and bullied at her work.”
“Give me your right hand,” said Gustav.
He affected to study it and then said, “You have had a very unhappy life. You had a bullying husband, but he is now dead.
Your colleagues at work did not appreciate you. But your life is about to change.”
“How?” demanded Emma.
“There is a man much younger than you who interests you.” “Oh, yes!”
Now what? thought Gustav. Then he thought, why not make trouble for that Raisin female as well? He knew from Charles that Emma worked for Agatha Raisin.
“There is a woman who stands between you and your love. Let me see.” He bent down and fished a crystal ball out of its box at his feet. He hadn’t bothered using it before. He peered into it. “Yes, I see her. She is middle-aged with brown hair and small eyes. While she is around, you do not have any hope. No hope at all.”
“No hope,” echoed Emma in a quavering voice.
“No hope,” said Gustav lugubriously.
“What shall I do?”
“The solution is in your hands. Now Madame Zora is tired and cannot see anything else. That will be ten pounds, please.”
Emma was so shaken that she opened her wallet and paid up without a murmur.
After she had gone, Gustav put one pound in the collection box out of his pocket, the actual price he should have charged, and kept the tenner for himself.
Emma left the tent feeling shaken. A little voice of common sense was telling her it was all rubbish, but yet, Madame Zora had known about her past life and had described Agatha Raisin.
She decided to leave the fete. The day was unseasonably hot, and her feet and legs hurt.
The fantasy of “removing” Agatha slowly began to become a reality in her obsessed brain.
But she very nearly decided to forget about the whole thing when Agatha, returned from London, called on her that evening.
“I took the opportunity to visit my solicitor in London, Emma,” said Agatha. “In case anything happens to me in the near future, I have decided to leave the detective agency to you.”
“Oh, Agatha, how kind!”
“I know you’re getting on in years, and if nothing happens to me in, say, the next five, I will cancel the codicil. You’ve done very good work for me, Emma.”
And then she added, “I’d better get home and pack a bag. I’m off to Paris with Charles in the morning.”
When she had gone, Emma sat with her hands tightly clenched. She should be the one going off to Paris with Charles. Agatha out of the way would mean the detective agency would be hers. Charles obviously liked detecting. They could solve cases together. But how to get rid of Agatha Raisin? It would need to look like an accident. Emma’s head felt hot and feverish.
Agatha and Charles flew to Paris on an early plane and took a taxi from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the couturiers in the Rue Saint-Honore. They handed over their cards and sat on gilt chairs in the salon and waited for Felicity.
At last a middle-aged woman entered the salon, holding their cards by the tips of her fingers.
“I am so sorry,” she said, “Mees Felicity is not here.”
“Where is she?” demanded Agatha, looking at the trim-figured Frenchwoman standing over her and wondering if there was such a thing as a bad figure in Paris.
“Mees Felicity is on the vacances.”
“When is she due back?”
“Pardon?”
Charles said in impeccable French, “Where has Felicity gone on holiday and when do you expect her to return?”
She replied in rapid French while Agatha waited impatiently.
Again Charles spoke and rose to go. “What was that all about?” demanded Agatha.
“She’s gone on holiday to somewhere in the south of France but she’s expected back tomorrow. She’s only been working with them a few months. Worked as a secretary before and they needed someone here with a knowledge of computers.”
“Rats,” said Agatha. “If we change our flights, we’ll lose the money on the return trip.”
“We could always get one of those el cheapo flights or Euro-star. Seems a shame to go back now we’re here. And we may as well double-check Laggat-Brown’s alibi.”
“Oh, all right,” said Agatha. “What hotel was he staying in? I’ve forgotten.”
“The Hotel Duval on the Boulevard Saint-Michel. May as well check in for the night. Won’t be too busy this time of year.”
&nb
sp; “I’ll phone Emma and Miss Simms,” said Agatha, “and tell her we’ll be here another day.”
Emma felt she couldn’t bear it. She had to take some sort of action. She remembered that she had a container of rat poison she had brought from her old home. You weren’t supposed to poison rats or mice any more because of some European Union regulation. You were supposed to trap them and then hit them on the head with a hammer or something. First she had to get into Agatha’s house.
Agatha had told Emma to tell Doris to look after the cats for another day. Emma called on Doris Simpson and said, “I thought as I live next door, it would be easier for me to look after the cats and save you coming and going.”
“That would be great,” said Doris. “Ell come along with you and show you how to work the burglar alarm.”
In possession of Agatha’s keys, Emma said goodbye to Doris and went down to the shed at the bottom of her garden and took down the box of rat poison. She did not allow herself to stop and think about the enormity of what she was doing.
She went to Agatha’s cottage and let herself in. She went through to the kitchen where Agatha’s two cats, Hodge and Boswell, stared up at her. She shooed them out into the garden.
Emma took down a jar of instant coffee, tipped half of the granules of rat poison into it, being careful to wear gloves, and then screwed the lid back on.
She felt suddenly calm. She found tins of cat food and filled two bowls. After half an hour, she let the cats back in and then went back to her own cottage, forgetting to set the burglar alarm or to lock the back door. The deed was done.
The receptionist at the Hotel Duval said he remembered Mr. Laggat-Brown very well, particularly since the hotel had been closely questioned by the police. Mr. Laggat-Brown was a most charming man. He spoke French like a native. He gathered that the police had checked the airlines and that Mr. Laggat-Brown was known to have travelled back to England when he said he did.Agatha asked if he knew where Mr. Laggat-Brown had gone after he had checked into the hotel. He had been out for two hours.
The receptionist said that Mr. Laggat-Brown had said something about going to a reunion.
