Agatha Raisin 18 (2007) - Kissing Christmas Goodbye

by M C Beaton

  As they drove off, Agatha said, “You know, he must be interested in her. But he’s too old.”

  “He’s only in his early thirties and he’s a goodlooking fellow. Don’t interfere.”

  “I’ve invested a lot of time and money in that girl,” said Agatha. “Next thing, she’ll be off, married to George and too pregnant to do any work.”

  “I never thought of you as being mercenary, Aggie.”

  “I’m a businesswoman, I’ll have you know.”

  “Quite. But bug out.”

  Chapter Ten

  Phil, Charles and Agatha drove to Bourton-onthe-Water the following morning, after Agatha had telephoned Toni. Toni said her mother was actually sober, and her delight at that seemed to have taken some of the misery out of her brother’s suicide.

  “How did he kill himself?” asked Phil.

  “Hanged. Drilled a hook into the kitchen ceiling and hanged himself from that, Toni says.”

  “That poor girl!”

  “She had a miserable time with him,” said Agatha. “I’ll buy her a second-hand car when we’re finished in Bourton.” They drove into the car park and walked through to the village. “Would you look at that!” exclaimed Agatha. “Look at all the people and at this time of year. I think the tourists just never stop.”

  “Loads of Chinese,” said Charles. “They’re allowing them out on package tours to the Cotswolds.”

  Bourton-on-the-Water is a famous beauty spot with a glassy stream flowing through the centre, old bridges and old houses. The day was sunny and clear with a cold wind sending the last of the leaves scurrying along the street in front of them.

  “It’s round here.”

  “I wonder if this is really a good idea,” said Agatha. “I always think psychiatrists are like fortune-tellers and psychics. People only go to them to indulge their vanity.”

  “People like you always think that,” said Charles, turning to admire the back view of a pretty girl with long legs.

  “What do you mean, people like me?”

  “People who need a psychiatrist themselves.”

  “That’s snide.”

  “Think about it, Aggie. You’re pining after an ex-husband who was a pain in the bum when you married him and you aren’t even in love with him any more.”

  “I’ll have you know, you miserable little, penny- pinching –”

  “Children! Children!” admonished Phil. “We’re here.”

  The house was small and grey; one of those old Cotswold houses which weather so well that it is hard to determine its age.

  The door was opened by a tall rangy female in tight jeans, high boots and a peasant-type blouse. She had masses of frizzy blonde hair, a narrow face and pale-blue eyes.

  “Wot you want?” she asked.

  “Dr Drayton.”

  “You ‘ave the appointment?”

  “Yes,” said Phil. “Mr Marshall.”

  “Wait.”

  “These Poles get everywhere these days,” said Charles. “But what a looker!”

  She returned. “Come in.”

  They followed her into a book-lined study where an elderly man sat in front of a log fire. He had thinning grey hair and very thick glasses. He was hunched forward in a leather armchair, wearing an old Harris tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows.

  “Sit down,” he ordered. “Turn my chair round, Sasha, so I can see them.”

  Sasha did as she was told. “You may leave us,” said Dr Drayton.

  “You want tea?”

  “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  He might have asked, thought Agatha, looking around to see if there was an ashtray in the room and not finding any.

  “Where did you find the girl?” asked Charles.

  “An agency. Now, I believe you wish to consult me.” He took a small tape recorder out of his pocket and switched it on.

  Agatha began at the beginning. He interrupted her only occasionally to ask for descriptions of various people. Charles, who often put Agatha down as scatty, was amazed at the clear and concise report she gave.

  When she had finished, Dr Drayton said, “I wonder what her upbringing was like? Leave this with me and I will give you my conclusions. May I have your address?”

  Agatha fished out a card and handed it to him.

  “Thank you.” He rang a small bell. Sasha appeared. “They are leaving,” he said. “Show them out.”

  Sasha led the way to the front door. As Agatha and Phil walked down the short garden path, Charles nipped back before Sasha could close the door. They waited outside the garden gate. Agatha saw Charles giving Sasha his card.

  It’s all right for men, she thought sourly. He’s in his middle forties and yet he can chat up a young girl like that. Now, if I chased after George Pyson, say, I’d be called a harpy.

  Phil and Charles helped Agatha buy a small second-hand Ford. With Charles driving it and Agatha following after they had dropped Phil off at his cottage with stern instructions to rest, they went into Mircester and parked in the main square.

  Toni had just returned from identifying the body. Her mother was red-eyed but composed. “I got you a car,” said Agatha gruffly. “Here are the keys and the paperwork.”

  “Oh, thank you,” said Toni. “You are so generous.”

  “I’m not really,” said Agatha. “You can hand the car back to me if you ever leave. Where’s George?”

  Mrs Gilmour said, “He’s at the undertaker’s to arrange the funeral. So kind.”

  I must warn her about George, thought Agatha. That was immediately followed by the sensible thought that she should really mind her own business. Toni and her mother needed all the help they could get. Agatha told Toni to take as much time as she needed. Then she asked, “What about your home, Mrs Gilmour? Are you going back there?”

  “No, I went over today and it’s filthy. Fortunately I bought it when I was still working and council houses were cheap. Mr Pyson is hiring two women to scrub the place out. I really don’t know what we’d do without him.”

  “Right. Toni, I’ll call you later in the day to see how you are.”

  Toni put her arms round Agatha and hugged her by way of farewell.

  “How’s about that?” asked Charles when they were outside. “Didn’t know you had a maternal streak.”

  “Maternal be damned,” snorted Agatha. “She’s a good detective and I don’t want to lose her.”

  “Looks to me as if you are going to lose her to George.”

  “Curse the man. Why couldn’t he pick on someone older?”

  “Like you?”

  “Shut up! Let the moths out of your wallet for once and buy me lunch!”

  Charles went off after lunch, leaving Agatha to return to the office on her own.

  She found Alison waiting for her, an Alison pale-faced and fretful, who leaped up when Agatha entered, crying, “You must drop the investigation at once!”

  “Why? Please sit down. You look awful. May we give you a cup of coffee?”

  “No! No! Just drop it. I’ll pay you anything you want. I’ve told the police I am taking you off the case.”

  “But why? Surely you’ll want all this cleared up?”

  Alison suddenly sank down on the sofa and burst into tears. Mrs Freedman rushed forward with a box of tissues. Agatha paced up and down feeling helpless while motherly Mrs Freedman sat beside Alison with an arm around her shoulders, saying, “There, now. Have a good cry, dear. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Alison at last dried her eyes, gave a huge gulping sob, and said, “If you don’t drop the case, Bert says he’ll divorce me. He said things were bad enough before, but now you’ve discovered his mother was probably a murderer, they’ll find it even harder to sell the house and estate.”

  Was that the real motive? wondered Agatha. Or had one of the family or all of them killed Phyllis and didn’t want her to discover it?

  “Don’t you want to find out who killed Phyllis?” asked
Agatha.

  “Oh, I do,” wailed Alison pitifully.

  “Well, just go back and tell your husband that I am off the case. I’ll try to find out something very quietly.”

  “Can’t you just leave it alone? Bert says the police have all the resources you haven’t, like forensics and all that.”

  “Forensics didn’t do a very good job of finding that poisoned bottle of wine before it killed Fred Instick.”

  There was a long silence and then Alison said reluctantly, “All right. But it means you can’t go near the manor.”

  “Then I’ll have to rely on you to keep me informed,” said Agatha. “Will you do that?”

  “Very well.”

  When Alison left, Agatha went to the window and looked down. Bert was waiting on the other side of the road for her. Agatha could see Alison talking rapidly and then Bert smiled, patted her back and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’ll find out who murdered that damn woman if it’s the last thing I do,” muttered Agatha.

  But she was too busy in the following days, filling in for Phil whom she had ordered to take more rest, and for Toni who was not expected back at work until the following week. Charles had disappeared again and so Agatha was glad of Roy Silver’s company when that young man arrived for the weekend. She had forgotten what a good listener he was. On Saturday morning at the breakfast table, she told him all about the case from beginning to end and it was over an hour before she had finished.

  He had listened carefully and then brightened when she told him about the visit to the retired psychiatrist. “Ooh! I would like to see him,” said Roy. “He might find me a fascinating subject.”

  “And he might die of boredom.”

  “Claws in, Aggie.”

  “Don’t call me Aggie!”

  “So are we sleuthing this weekend?”

  “Actually I thought I’d make some plans for my Christmas dinner.”

  “Don’t talk about Christmas,” complained Roy. “I hate the whole business. Crowded shops. Sound of Music and Miracle on 34th Street, all running for the umpteenth time. People get so cross and worried and spend too much money and begin to hate their families. Some relatives always disgrace themselves by getting drunk.”

  “Roy, my Christmas is going to be one you’ll never forget.”

  “I haven’t quite forgotten the last one. Do you remember when you incinerated the Christmas pudding and lost your eyebrows?”

  “I have learned from my mistakes. Alison has begged me to drop the case. I can’t go near the manor.”

  “That Toni’s an awfully pretty girl,” said Roy. “She looked lovely on television. Wouldn’t surprise me if some television people didn’t snatch her up.”

  “Over my dead body,” said Agatha.

  “You’ve got all these suspects,” said Roy. “In fact, it’s beginning to look like the local phone directory. You’ve told me all about them and which one could have maybe murdered Phyllis, but you’ve left one out.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “George Pyson.”

  “He’s only the factor,” said Agatha. “He had only been working for her for four years. Why should he, of all people, want to kill her?”

  “He runs the estate. He does the books. He could have been creaming off money and Phyllis could have found out and threatened to go to the police.”

  “So why was the gardener poisoned?”

  “To cover up his first crime.”

  “No. The gardener was killed after he put his head round the drawing-room door and told them he knew which one of them had done it. Not one of them had time to doctor that bottle of wine. Now I come to think of it, it may point to someone outside the family who didn’t know that none of them liked the wine. Mind you, I don’t really want to think of that because it would mean that all of them are at risk. It could have been one of those awful villagers. They’re in a time warp. They believe in witchcraft and probably know an awful lot about poisonous plants. I’d like to go back to that village, but I doubt if any one of them would speak to us.

  “Then there are those two sisters from the village who helped at lunch. Maybe they did it. But why should they? With Phyllis gone and the family planning to sell, they’d risk losing their cheap rent. I wish I could take another look round Phyllis’s bedroom.”

  “I’m sure the police turned it over thoroughly.”

  “Maybe not. I’ll phone Alison and ask if there’s any hope that the lot of them could all be out of the place sometime.”

  Agatha came back from phoning. “What luck! I phoned Alison on her mobile and she said they were all at Sir Henry’s to get away from the press. She says Jill, the groom, will let us in. This letter’s just arrived. The address on the back says it’s from that psychiatrist.”

  “Do open it,” begged Roy. “Maybe he’ll have solved the murder for us.”

  Agatha opened the envelope and began to read. Roy waited impatiently. At last he said, “Well, come on. What does he say?”

  “Load of bollocks.”

  “Tell me!”

  “The sum total is that he believes Phyllis was a megalomaniac and poisoned herself in order to get revenge on the children she never really wanted to have.”

  “Isn’t that possible?”

  “When the poison began to take effect she looked startled and worried.”

  “But she was found clutching that hemlock root, wasn’t she?”

  “She was wearing a dress with pockets. She might have popped the root in one of the pockets after making up the salads. She might have taken the root out of her pocket before she became totally paralysed to give us a clue. And why did she think she was going to be murdered, and by one of her family?”

  “Aggie, the man’s an expert. Why don’t you just take his word for it?”

  “I’m going to investigate further. Wait! I’ve got to phone Alison again.”

  Alison answered, saying in an urgent whisper, “You’ve got to stop phoning me. Wait. I’ll go into the other room. Now, what is it?”

  “The will divided everything equally amongst the four of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “No mention of the technical college getting all the money?”

  “No, but the lawyer said she had told him that she meant to visit him a week after her death to change her will. We all knew that.”

  “Talk to you later,” said Agatha and rang off.

  She turned to Roy, her eyes gleaming. “There you are. I’m slipping. I’d forgotten the one most important fact. Phyllis was going to change her will and if she hadn’t been murdered, there’s a good chance her family might have ended up with very little. Let’s get going and hope there are no police up there.”

  After opening a few wrong doors, Agatha found Phyllis’s room. The mattress and box spring had been removed, no doubt for forensic examination.

  “Where do we start?” asked Roy.

  “You poke around under the carpet and see if she could have hidden anything under the floorboards. I’ll look through the bookshelves. Weird that she liked nothing but children’s books.”

  Agatha began to take the books out of the shelves, shaking each one. “Why are you shaking the books?” asked Roy.

  “Because there might be a draft of a will or a letter.”

  “You’ve been reading too many detective stories,” said Roy. “I can’t do anything with this carpet. It’s nasty fitted haircord and nailed down.”

  “Well, just sit there.”

  Agatha at last straightened up. She gave a yelp of pain and clutched her hip.

  “You should do something about that,” said Roy.

  “Shut up and let me think. I’ve been muddled up with all these suspects. I’ve a feeling the obvious is staring me in the face. Let me go back to that final, dreadful high tea. Fran made a scene and threw her salad into the fireplace. Wait a minute! Before Charles and I went off to the pub, Charles wanted to look in on Phyllis, but Fran stopped him! Said she was just sleep
ing.”

  “It might have looked like that.”

  “The salads would be laid out in the kitchen before tea. Fran could have nipped in and grated hemlock into Phyllis’s salad.”

  “How would she know which salad Phyllis would take?”

  “Got to phone Alison.”

  “Oh,” wailed Alison, “they’re already getting suspicious. You’re lucky I’m in my room. What is it now?”

  “Did Phyllis have a favourite bowl for salad?”

  “Yes, it was the blue one. Blue with yellow flowers.”

  “But I remember the others were blue with yellow flowers.”

  “The bowl Phyllis had was a deep blue. She got the set cheap because they were supposed to be matching in colour but one of the bowls had come out a darker blue than the others. So she knocked the price down. What’s this about?”

  “Talk to you later.”

  Agatha said to Roy, “She did have a favourite bowl.”

  “Yes, but Fran didn’t have time to get back into the kitchen and look for a hemlock root,” said Roy.

  “She might have been in the habit of carrying bits of vegetables round in her pocket with her. Don’t spoil my theory,” snapped Agatha.

  “But how on earth are you going to prove it?”

  “I’ll confront her. Help me to put these books back.”

  “Aggie, tell the police.”

  “Won’t do. Fran knows there’s no proof but she might drop her guard to me. I’ll wait until they get back here and phone. I mean, I didn’t see any press around.”

  “So if you can’t get her now,” pleaded Roy, “why don’t we just spend the rest of the time having a lazy weekend?”

  “After I see how Toni is getting on. I don’t even know when the funeral is or was. I shouldn’t have left everything to George Pyson. He’s got designs on that young girl and he’s too old.”

  “How old?”

  “Early thirties.”

  “That’s not old. Why interfere?”

  The answer to that was, “Because I don’t want to lose a very good detective,” but Agatha said instead, “Hurry up with these books.”