The Case of the Curious Curate ar-13

by M C Beaton

  Then she rose stiffly and went up to bed. She carefully removed her make-up and peered at her face in the magnifying mirror in the bathroom. The lines around her mouth seemed to have got deeper. She undressed, took a quick shower, pulled on a night-dress and crawled into bed and lay staring up at the beams in the ceiling. At last the shrilling of the doorbell fell silent and she sank into an uneasy sleep.

  It was early afternoon the next day when she remembered the phone was still unplugged and reconnected it. She dialled John’s number. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Writing. But I’ve got something for you. I’ll be right over.”

  “Knock the door, then, don’t ring and I’ll know it’s you.”

  Agatha was wearing an old blue linen dress and flat sandals. She wondered whether to change into something more fashionable, but then reminded herself – it was only John.

  When the knock came at the door, she answered it. John followed her through to the kitchen and put a small jeweller’s box on the table. “I think you’d better start wearing that to keep up the fiction.”

  Agatha opened the box and found herself looking down at an engagement ring, a large sapphire surrounded by diamond chips.

  “When did you get this?” she asked.

  “Years ago. It’s my ex-wife’s. She flung it in my face just before we broke up. Try it on.”

  Agatha slid it on over the wedding band she still wore. It was a perfect fit.

  A tear rolled down her face and plopped on the kitchen table.

  “What’s up?” said John.

  Agatha gave a shaky laugh. “I still have the engagement ring James gave me. I couldn’t bear to wear it although I still wear his wedding ring.”

  John gave her a brief hug. “Best you wear a different one. Unless I’m mistaken, Bill Wong will be back soon. I’ll make us some coffee. Those cats of yours are prancing all over the kitchen table. Do you allow that?”

  “I’m afraid I let them do what they like. The table’s scrubbed regularly. Still, you’re right.” She lifted both cats off the table, opened the door to the garden and shooed them out.

  John was spooning coffee into the percolator when the doorbell rang.

  “I wonder if that’s the press again.” Agatha went to the front door and peered through the spy-hole. “It’s Mrs. Bloxby,” she called.

  She swung open the door. “Come in. Poor you. What a nightmare. Where is your husband?”

  “Helping the police with their inquiries.”

  Mrs. Bloxby sat down at the kitchen table. “Coffee?” asked John. “It’ll be ready in a moment.”

  “Yes, please,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Milk and no sugar.”

  “Why Miss Jellop?”

  “I just don’t know,” said Mrs. Bloxby. She accepted a cup of coffee from John. “Such a silly, harmless woman.”

  “Where did she come from? Everyone in Cotswold villages these days seems to come from outside. No wonder the locals complain about the villages losing their character.”

  “Miss Jellop moved here from somewhere in Staffordshire. I believe she was comfortably off. Her family were in jam. Jellop’s Jams and Jellies. Not much known around here but very popular in the north.”

  “Does Alf have an alibi?”

  “They don’t know the exact time of death, sometime in the evening. Alf was working in his study and I remembered that Miss Jellop had phoned in the morning. She wanted me to call round because she said she wanted to talk to me about something. She was always complaining about happenings in the parish and she wanted the church livened up, as she put it. Wanted to hire a steel band from Birmingham to perform at the services, that sort of thing. I phoned back late afternoon and said I would be around about nine in the evening. The door of her house was slightly open. There was no answer when I rang the doorbell and I went in, worried that she might have met with an accident.” Mrs. Bloxby raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “And there she was.”

  “Did she have anything around her neck?”

  “I couldn’t see. I mean, I forced myself to check her pulse and then I phoned for the police and ambulance. But I couldn’t bear to look at her closely.”

  “Villages are getting like the city,” said John. “Nobody notices things the way they would have done in the old days, when everyone minded everyone else’s business. There’s a high hedge on either side of her garden, as I remember, that effectively screens the door from the neighbours on either side.”

  “Let’s see,” said Agatha. “She lived in a terraced cottage on Dover Rise up behind the general stores. It’s a cul-de-sac. Surely someone must have seen someone walking along.”

  “If you remember, there are only four cottages in that row. Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon were away in Evesham visiting their daughter. That’s the first cottage you come to. Then there’s Mr. and Mrs. Partington. They were in their back parlour away from the road for a good part of the evening watching a couple of rented videos and eating TV dinners. Then comes Miss Jellop, and at the end of the row, Miss Debenham, who was with her sister in Cheltenham and stayed there the night.”

  “How come you’re so well-informed?” asked Agatha.

  “I’ve had police in the vicarage half the night and they often talk as if I’m not there.”

  “So we come back to Miss Jellop,” said John. “Did you overhear the police say anything about Tristan’s bank account?”

  “Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. He paid several sums into his account over the past few weeks, but all in cash. Before this murder, they interviewed several of the women they think he might have preyed on, but they all swear they gave him nothing. They say they had been thinking about it. They even checked old Mrs. Feathers’s bank account, but the only large sum – large sum to her – she had drawn out recently was to supply you with dinner, Mrs. Raisin. She evidently said he had promised to invest money for her, but women like Mrs. Feathers are frightened of old age and harvest every penny. The fact that Tristan even got her to pay for his meals says a lot for his charm.”

  “So did you hear how much he had in his account?” asked Agatha.

  Mrs. Bloxby shook her head. Her usually mild grey eyes were full of worry and pain. “I am so worried about poor Alf. Did you find out anything?”

  “We don’t want the police to know,” cautioned Agatha, “because they would give us a rocket for interfering.” She told Mrs. Bloxby about the visit to New Cross and to Binser.

  “If only it would turn out to be someone from London,” sighed the vicar’s wife. “The atmosphere in the village is poisonous, all these silly women telling the police that Alf was jealous of Mr. Delon.”

  Pale sunlight shining in through the kitchen window sparkled on the ring on Agatha’s finger.

  “That’s a new ring,” exclaimed Mrs. Bloxby.

  “John got rattled and told Bill Wong we were engaged to cover up what we were doing in London,” said Agatha.

  “Perhaps you should have told him the truth,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Anything to get the investigation away from poor Alf.”

  “I really don’t think Mr. Bloxby has anything to worry about,” said John soothingly. “In order to suspect him of the first murder, they would need to think you were lying to protect him and no one could believe that.”

  Agatha was about to point out waspishly that John had suggested to her Mrs. Bloxby might be lying, but with rare tact refrained from saying anything.

  “I’d better get back,” said Mrs. Bloxby, rising to her feet. “Alf might be back any time and I wouldn’t want him to find the vicarage empty.”

  “Do you want us to come with you? Aren’t the press pestering you?”

  “They’ve gone, apart from a few local reporters.”

  Agatha saw Mrs. Bloxby out and returned to John. “Let’s switch on television and look at the news,” he said. “Something big must have happened to send them running off.”

  “Wait until the top of the hour,” said Agatha. “It’s twenty to three. It
’ll be sport on every channel.”

  She lit a cigarette. “That’s a filthy habit,” remarked John.

  “I know,” she sighed, “but one I love a lot.”

  “We’ll just need to wait. Things’ll be easier if the press have gone. We could leave it until tomorrow and then try to see what we can get out of this Peggy Slither. She’s in Ancombe and the police won’t be hanging around there. Did Mrs. Bloxby say where she lived?”

  “I can’t remember. Wait and I’ll get the phone-book.” Agatha went out and came back with the telephone directory.

  As Agatha turned the pages, John said, “I remember. Shangri-la. That was the name of her place.”

  “That’s right. Gnomes in the garden. I remember. Here it is. Doesn’t give a street, just the name of the bloody house, as if the snobby cow lived in a manor. Well, Ancombe’s a small place. Should be easy to find.”

  They turned over various bits and pieces of what they knew until Agatha noticed it was almost three o’clock. “Let’s look at the television news now.”

  They went into Agatha’s sitting-room and she switched on the television set and selected the BBC 24-Hour News programme.

  The announcer said, “The Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Nationalists, and the Unionists have combined to table a motion of no confidence in the government following the revelations that the defence minister, Joseph Demerall, had been accepting large sums of money from Colonel Gadaffi.”

  “So that’s it,” said Agatha. “The press won’t be interested in a village murder, or murders. At least we should get some peace.”

  “I think I’ll go and get on with my writing,” said John, getting to his feet. “I’ll call for you in the morning, say around ten.”

  “All right,” said Agatha, although she suddenly did not want to be left alone.

  “See you.”

  Agatha wondered what to do. A pile of shiny new paperbacks she had bought in Evesham lay on the coffee-table. She picked up the first one. Jerry’s Mistake, it was called. Agatha sighed as she skimmed the pages. She shouldn’t have wasted her money. It was a chic-fic book, which meant it would be about thirty-something women in London. There would be one Cinderella character who would have a gay best friend and the best friend would die from AIDS in the penultimate chapter. The hero would have muscled legs and be bad-tempered. She tossed it aside. The next was the first Harry Potter book. Agatha had bought it out of curiosity. She settled down to read and became dimly aware an hour later that the doorbell was ringing. She looked through the spy-hole and saw Bill Wong. With feelings of guilt and reluctance she opened the door. He was alone.

  “I think it’s time you and I had a chat, Agatha.”

  “Come in and bring the thumbscrews with you. We’ll sit in the garden. It doesn’t look too cold.”

  “No, it’s nice and fresh after that storm.”

  Agatha collected two mugs of coffee and carried them out into the garden. Hodge and Boswell climbed up on Bill. Hodge settled on his lap and Boswell draped himself around Bill’s neck.

  “Amazing how those cats like you,” said Agatha.

  “I’d like to concentrate on the matter in hand, however.” Bill gently removed both cats and put them down on the grass. “Now, Agatha, I see you already have the ring. But why do I get the impression that the pair of you were lying to me?”

  “Because you’ve got a nasty, suspicious policeman’s mind. We are very much in love. No, I’ll be honest with you. We get along together very well and neither of us wants to go into old age alone. So we decided to get hitched.”

  “If you say so. No word of James?”

  “I may as well tell you. That lying bastard never returned to that monastery.”

  “He’ll turn up again. With your luck, probably on your wedding day.”

  “Forget about him. Any ideas why Miss Jellop was murdered?”

  “I think she might have found out something. I think that was why she phoned Mrs. Bloxby. And yet Mrs. Bloxby said Miss Jellop was always summoning her to make some complaint or another.”

  “Was she rich?”

  “Very comfortably off.”

  “Anyone inherit?”

  “She hadn’t left a will. Her nearest relative was a sister who lives in Stoke-on-Trent.”

  “Tell me, Bill – anything funny in Tristan’s bank account?”

  “Large sums of money, not great – five hundred here, six hundred there, all deposited in cash. Total around fifteen thousand. Seems he invented that family trust. He was born Terence Biles. Father was a post-office worker, mother a housewife. Both dead. Tristan changed his name by deed poll when he was seventeen. His parents were dead then. Nothing in his past. Good exam results at school. Studied divinity. Had the curacy of a church in Kensington for a few years. Nothing sinister there. Vicar said Tristan had declared he wanted to work in a rougher area. He seemed genuinely sorry to let him go.”

  “So, Agatha, you haven’t been poking your nose in where you shouldn’t?”

  “No. I really have gone off the idea of detecting. I want to live a long and quiet life.”

  Bill stood up. “If you hadn’t said that, I might actually have begun to believe you really were getting married. But you wanting a quiet life? Never! Just make sure if you do find anything that you tell me.”

  After he had gone, Agatha sat on in the garden, deep in thought. What had happened to that ten thousand? The police would not have asked the bank about it because they didn’t know about it. Perhaps Tristan had asked for it in bits and pieces so as not to alert the income tax.

  Agatha phoned Binser’s office and asked to speak to him. She finally got through to his personal secretary, Miss Partle. “I really do wish you would leave him alone,” said the secretary sharply. “He is very busy.”

  Agatha drew a deep breath. “Look, lady, just get off your bum and tell him that Agatha Raisin wishes to speak to him.”

  “Well, really.”

  Agatha waited and then Binser’s voice came on the line. “What now?” he said. “I’ve told you all I know.”

  “It’s just about that ten thousand pounds. How did you pay it?”

  “Cash.”

  “Cash!” echoed Agatha. “That’s odd.”

  “I know it’s odd, but I think Tristan twisted my mind. He said he was setting up a special account with a bank in New Cross. He could get started right away if he didn’t have to wait to get the cheque to clear.”

  “I know you didn’t want anyone to know you had been conned. Still, I would have thought a man like you would have sued him to get the money back.”

  “He sent it back.”

  “What! You didn’t say anything about that. When?”

  “About a month after I had confronted him. The money was delivered downstairs in a large envelope, addressed to me.”

  “Was there any letter with the money? Perhaps he was hoping to resume the friendship.”

  “No, there was no letter. I heard from him a week after that when he threatened to blackmail me. And as I told you, I said I would report him to the police if he did, and heard no more from him. Now, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Raisin, as far as I am concerned the matter is closed. I have heard on the news about the other murder in your village. Obviously the murderer is in your neck of the woods. Goodbye.”

  Agatha replaced the receiver and stood thinking hard. What would have made Tristan return that money? Mr. Lancing, his vicar? No, it would have been more like Tristan to fake penitence and claim to have returned the money while keeping it.

  She reached out to the phone again, meaning to call John and discuss this with him, but changed her mind. Tomorrow morning would be time enough. She didn’t want to fall into the trap of needing John’s company.

  But when she lay awake in bed that night, she felt frightened at the thought that there was some unknown murderer out there. And a thatched cottage was the last place you wanted to try to get to sleep in when you were scared. Things rustled in the thatch overhe
ad and the beams creaked. She decided, just before she fell asleep, that she would forget about the whole thing, see the police in the morning and ask permission to go abroad. She would stay in some foreign country, far away from danger.

  In the morning, however, after two cups of black coffee and three cigarettes for breakfast, Agatha felt strong again. The fears of the night had gone. At ten o’clock, she heard the beep of John’s car horn outside, locked up the cottage and went to join him.

  As they drove to Ancombe, she told him about the visit from Bill and her phone call to Binser and the surprising news of the return of the money.

  “There’s something that man isn’t telling us,” said John. “Tristan wouldn’t return the money like that. He must have threatened him.”

  “I dunno. There’s something very straightforward about him.”

  “If he’s all that straightforward, then why did he give us the impression that Tristan kept the money?”

  “He didn’t lie about it.”

  “Only by omission. Here’s Ancombe. Look for a twee cottage.”

  “Nothing in the main street that I can see. Stop at the post office there and I’ll ask.”

  John waited until Agatha returned with the news that Peggy Slither lived at the far end of the village in Sheep Street.

  “There must be hundreds of Sheep Streets in the Cotswolds,” said John, letting in the clutch and moving off.

  At the end of the village, he turned right into Sheep Street.

  “Only a few houses here. Oh, that must be it up ahead on the right.”

  Shangri-la was a modern bungalow. The front garden was bright with flowers and plaster gnomes. They parked outside and then made their way up a crazy-paving path to the front door. The doormat bore the legend GO AWAY. No doubt Peggy found it humorous. John pressed the bell and they waited while it rang out the chimes of Big Ben. “Is she Mrs. or Miss?” asked John.

  “Don’t know.”

  The door was opened by a dark-haired middle-aged woman. She had a sallow skin and the sort of twinkling humorous eyes of people who do not have much of a sense of humour at all.

  Agatha introduced herself and John.