by M C Beaton
“You’ve gone blonde!” said Bill, goggling at her. “This is Alice.”
“Come along in,” said Agatha.
As she led the way to the sitting-room, she heard Alice mutter, “You said she was old.”
And then Bill’s quiet rejoinder, “I said older than me.”
Agatha crossed to the drinks trolley. “What will you have, Alice?”
“Rum and Coke.”
“Oh dear,” said Agatha. “I don’t know if I’ve got any Coke.”
“Sherry will do, if you’ve got that,” said Alice.
“I’ll have a soft drink,” said Bill.
“Tonic water?”
“That’ll be fine.”
Agatha busied herself with the drinks, handed them round, and sat down opposite Alice and Bill, who were seated side by side on the sofa. It was the first occasion since their arrival that Agatha was able to get a good look at Alice. She had curly brown hair, wide eyes and a pugnacious jaw. She had a generous bosom, a thick waist and chubby legs.
“Have you known Bill long?” asked Alice. She took Bill’s hand in hers and held it firmly.
“Ever since I came down here. Bill was my first friend.”
“Seems odd.” Alice took a sip of her drink and wrinkled her nose. “I like sweet sherry,” she said.
“I don’t have any of that. May I offer you something else?”
“Don’t bother. Just put this in a bigger glass and add some tonic water.”
Oh dear, thought Agatha, but did as requested. “What’s odd?” she asked.
“Well, I mean, Bill being young and you old.”
“We were not having an affair,” said Agatha acidly.
“Found out anything more about the case?” asked Bill hurriedly. Why, oh why, he wondered, did Agatha Raisin have to go blonde and put on a slinky dress?
Agatha shook her head. She told them about the duck races. Alice laughed, a harsh and brittle sound. “Kids’ stuff.”
I will not be nasty to this girl for Bill’s sake, no matter what she says, vowed Agatha. “Oh, it will be amusing, I assure you,” she said lightly. “How do you enjoy working in the bank, Alice?”
“’Sawright.”
“Interesting customers?”
“Some of them. Some of them think the bank’s a bottomless pit of money. They come in saying the machine outside won’t give them anything. I just tell them, ‘You’re wasting my time and your own. If that machine says you can’t have any money, then you can’t.’ ” She laughed. “You should see their faces.”
How can Bill like such a creature? marveled Agatha. But Bill was smiling at Alice fondly.
Alice stood up. “Can I use the little girls’ room?”
“It’s at the top of the stairs.”
When Alice had left, Bill grinned. “I’m rather enjoying this.”
“Why?” demanded Agatha.
“I’ve never seen Alice jealous before. You would choose this night to turn yourself into a blonde bombshell.”
“I should find it flattering, but I’m finding this visit awkward, Bill. Are you really keen on her?”
“I think this is the one, Agatha. You’re seeing her at her worst. You should be flattered.”
Agatha opened her mouth to say she wasn’t feeling flattered at all when Alice returned. Deciding to keep the conversation away from Alice, Agatha discussed the case with Bill while all the time she thought, he really mustn’t get tied up with such a creature. But she promised herself she would not interfere in his life.
But as they were leaving, Agatha said politely, “Give my regards to your parents, Bill.”
Alice, who had reached the front door ahead of Bill, swung round. “I haven’t met your parents. I would like to meet your parents.”
“And so you shall,” said Bill. “Thanks for the drinks, Agatha. I’ll call you soon.”
Agatha slammed the door behind them. Bill’s formidable mother would soon send Alice packing, but what a horror she was. Agatha surveyed herself in the hall mirror. She sighed. It just wouldn’t do. Then she was struck by the thought that John, seeing her as a blonde, might get the idea that she was trying to compete with Charlotte and she would look pathetic. Agatha resolved to get it all dyed back the way it was as soon as possible.
She had arranged so that the phone would not ring during Bill’s visit. She picked up the receiver to put it back on the ringing tone and found she had a message. She dialled 1-5-7-1 and waited. “You have one message,” said the carefully elicited voice of British Telecom. “To listen to your messages, please press one.” Agatha did that and Peggy Slither’s voice sounded, “I’m streets ahead of you. You’ll never guess what I found out. I’m just going to check a few more facts and then I’m going to the police.”
Agatha saved the message. I don’t think she knows anything at all, she thought. She bit her lip. She picked up the receiver again and arranged the ringing tone and replaced it again. She was just turning away when it rang. It was Mrs. Bloxby. “How are things with you, Mrs. Raisin?”
“I’m not getting any further. Oh, Bill was just round with his latest love and she’s horrible. Nasty bullying sort of girl.”
“Well, as you’ve pointed out before, they never last after a visit to his parents.”
“He hasn’t taken her to see them yet but he’s going to, so that should be the end of that.”
“I gather from what you’ve told me that he usually favours nice quiet girls. Maybe this one will be a match for his mother.”
“No one,” said Agatha with feeling, “is a match for Bill’s mother. Oh, there’s something else.” She told the vicar’s wife about her visit to Peggy and the message she had just received.
There was a silence and then Mrs. Bloxby said, “I don’t like this. I can’t help remembering the time when Miss Jellop phoned me up. Do you think she could be in danger?”
“I don’t know. She did know Tristan pretty well. I tell you what, I’ll phone her and see what she’s up to. Probably just bragging. I’ll let you know.”
Agatha rang off and looked up Peggy’s number in the phone-book and dialled. She got the engaged signal. She went into the kitchen and looked in the freezer for something to microwave. The cats wove their wave around her ankles. “You’ve been fed – twice,” complained Agatha. She picked out a packet of frozen steak-and-kidney pudding and put it in the microwave to defrost. She tried Peggy’s number again, but it was still engaged. She returned to the kitchen and heated the steak-and-kidney pudding and shovelled the mess onto a plate. The cats sniffed the air and then slunk off, uninterested. Agatha picked at her food with a fork. After she had managed to eat most of it, she dialled Peggy’s number. Still engaged.
I’ll drive along and see her, thought Agatha. She went upstairs and changed into a sweater, slacks and flat shoes. She tied a scarf over her hair because the more she looked at it, the more it began to seem too vulgar-bright.
The night was blustery with wind. The lilac tree at the gate dipped and swayed, sending leaves scurrying off down the lane. A tiny moon sailed in and out of the clouds above.
Agatha looked ruefully at John’s dark cottage. She felt that she would have liked him to go along with her. The road to Ancombe was quiet. She passed only two cars on the way and one late-night rambler, trudging along, scarf over the lower part of the face as protection against the wind.
When Agatha parked outside Peggy’s cottage and saw that all the lights were on and music was blaring out, she experienced a feeling of relief. Peggy was obviously entertaining. Still, thought Agatha, having come this far, I may as well see if she’ll give me a hint of what she has found out. If I handle it properly, she may be tempted to brag.
She walked up the garden path where plaster gnomes leered at her from the shrubbery. The Village People were belting out “Y.M.C.A.” The door was standing slightly ajar. Agatha walked into the little hall. The music crashed about her ears but she could not hear any voices.
Suddenly frighte
ned, she pushed open the door of the living-room and reeled before the increased blast of noise. She walked over to the stereo and switched it off. Now the silence, broken only by the sound of the peeing statue and the wind outside, was more frightening than the noise of the music.
“Peggy!” croaked Agatha. She cleared her throat and shouted loudly, “Peggy!”
Agatha looked longingly at the phone, which was in the shape of a shoe. Call the police before you look any further, she told herself. But something impelled her to go out and across the hall and push open the kitchen door at the back…She fumbled inside the door for a light switch and, finding it, pressed it down. Fluorescent light blazed down on the kitchen…on the blood on the white walls, on the blood on the floor and on the savagely cut body of Peggy Slither lying by the back door.
Agatha let out a whimper and stood with her hand to her mouth. She forced herself to kneel down by that terrible body and feel for a pulse. No life. No life at all.
She rose and scrambled back to the living-room and seized the phone and dialled the police. Then she went outside and leaned her head against the cold wall of the cottage.
∨ The Case of the Curious Curate ∧
8
For the next two weeks, Carsely was a village under siege. It was flooded by press and by sightseers. Finally rough weather drove the sightseers away, leaving behind them soda cans and sandwich wrappers, and another Balkan uprising sent the press rushing back to London. It was a relief to walk down the village streets without being accosted by reporters. The members of the ladies’ society picked up all the rubbish left behind and bagged it. Even John Fletcher, landlord of the Red Lion, who had done a roaring trade, was glad to see the last of the press and the gawking public.
John Armitage had returned from London as soon as he had heard the news of the latest murder. Agatha was once more restored to a brunette, having gone straight to the hairdresser’s the day after the murder and right after signing her statement at police headquarters in Mircester. Only the dogged police were left, still going from house to house in Carsely and in the neighbouring villages, questioning everyone over and over again. The weapon with which Peggy had been so brutally murdered had never been found.
Agatha had expected John to be a frequent caller to discuss the case, but he seemed quiet and withdrawn, saying he was behind with his writing and had to catch up. She herself had been frightened into inactivity, although she would not admit it to herself. Such as Agatha Raisin hardly ever admitted to being frightened. She persuaded herself that three murders were just too much. Out there was a madman who should be left to the police. But she lost weight through nerves, waking up during the night at the slightest sound and picking at her food during the day.
Mrs. Bloxby had given up urging Agatha to find the killer. “It really is not safe for you, Mrs. Raisin,” she said. “What if this dreadful murderer should decide you knew something as well?”
The day after the press had gone, John Armitage called round. “Are you eating?” he asked anxiously, as if noticing Agatha properly for the first time since his return from London. “You look haggard.”
Agatha glared at him. Despite her fright, she had been pleased with her new slimline figure. “I did find the body,” she snapped.
John sat down at her kitchen table. “And what about you?” asked Agatha. “What have you been doing?”
“I told you. Writing and more writing.”
“But you’ve never said anything about how you got on in London.”
“There’s nothing much to tell. I saw my publisher, I saw my agent, I saw my friends…”
“And you had at least one dinner with Charlotte Bellinge.”
“How did you know that?”
“There was a parcel sticking out of your letter-box. I opened your door to put it on the table and heard her dulcet tones on your answering machine.”
He coloured faintly. “I thought there might be a lead there, but there was nothing further to add. I did go back to see that vicar at New Cross, but he said he was busy and slammed the door in my face.”
“Don’t you find that suspicious?”
“Not really. I think he’s guilty about having lied to us in the first place. Anyway, to get back to Peggy Slither. She thought she had found out something. And you saw nothing around her home before you found the body? No sinister men?”
“Nothing.”
“Any cars on the road?”
Agatha frowned in thought. “Two passed me going away from Ancombe but don’t ask me the colour or make. It was dark and I didn’t notice them in particular.”
Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, she was driving towards Ancombe that evening. “The rambler,” she exclaimed. “I forgot about the rambler.”
“What rambler? Did you tell the police?”
“No, I forgot about him. The shock of finding Peggy lying in all that blood drove him right out of my head.”
“What was he like?” asked John eagerly.
“I just got a glimpse. One of those dark woolly hats and a scarf over the lower part of his face. An anorak, a backpack, dark trousers.”
“A scarf over his face and you didn’t think that suspicious?”
“There was a freezing wind that night. Oh, God, I’d better tell the police. They’ll think me such a fool for forgetting.”
The doorbell rang. “You get it, John,” said Agatha. “Probably some lingering local reporter. To think of the days when I cultivated the press!”
John went to the door and came back a few moments later followed by Bill Wong.
“There you are Agatha, you want the police and here’s Bill.”
“Why do you want the police?” asked Bill, shrugging off his raincoat and placing it on a chair.
“I’ve just remembered something.” Agatha told him about the rambler.
“Agatha!” Bill sounded exasperated. “Why didn’t you remember this before? I’m off duty, but get me a piece of paper. I’ll need to take this down.”
Agatha went through to her desk and came back with a sheet of paper and then sat down and described the rambler.
“Do you know what I think?” Bill put down his pen with a sigh. “I think our murderer was very lucky. Wilkes is going to be furious when I tell him this. If you had told us right away on the night of the murder, we could have put up road-blocks, we could have scoured the countryside for him. I’d best get off. We’ll put out a police bulletin asking him to come forward.” He got to his feet and put on his coat.
“Where was Alf Bloxby on the evening of the murder?” asked John.
“According to his wife, he was out on his rounds all evening. We’ve interviewed all the people he said he’d been to see, but it still leaves an hour unaccounted for.”
“Mrs. Bloxby never told me that.” Agatha experienced a pang of unease. “What does the vicar say he was doing during that hour?”
“He says he was just walking about. He says the whole business of Tristan’s murder had upset him dreadfully and he felt like taking a good walk before bedtime to clear his head.”
“Sounds reasonable,” said Agatha. She followed him to the door. “Why did you call?”
“Social visit.”
“How’s Alice?”
“She’s fine.”
“Take her to see your parents?”
“Yes. They loved her.”
Oh dear, thought Agatha.
She saw him out and returned to the kitchen. “Why did you ask about Alf Bloxby?” she demanded.
“I’ve been thinking. Just because we love Mrs. Bloxby doesn’t mean we know anything about Alf. Do you?”
“No, I don’t know much, but I do know this. Such as Mrs. Bloxby would never, ever stay married to any man capable of murder.”
“She might not know he was capable of murder.”
“Rubbish.”
“I mean, did she say anything to you about Alf being unable to account for an hour of his movements?”
“He did accoun
t for them!”
“But only his word. No witnesses. Let’s go and see her.”
“All right. If it’ll make you feel any better.”
“You’re not wearing your ring.”
“Oh, that. I’d forgotten about it. Do you want me to put it on?”
“May as well maintain the fiction.”
“We don’t need to maintain it in front of Mrs. Bloxby.”
“But we do in front of other people,” said John.
Agatha went through to her desk and fished out the ring and put it on her finger. It felt loose. Good heavens, she thought, I’m even losing weight on my fingers.
Leaves wheeled and whirled about them as they walked to the vicarage. To Agatha, the village no longer felt like a safe haven. She felt there was menace lurking around every corner. She longed for a cigarette and remembered the days when one never, ever smoked in the street. Now the street was about the only place outside one’s own home where one could smoke.
Mrs. Bloxby opened the door to them. “Come in quietly,” she said. “Alf is resting.”
They followed her into the vicarage sitting-room. Agatha and Mrs. Bloxby surveyed each other. Mrs. Bloxby noticed that Agatha was considerably thinner and Agatha noticed that Mrs. Bloxby’s usually mild eyes held a haunted look. They had talked since the murder, but only briefly.
Agatha told her about the rambler and Mrs. Bloxby clasped her hands as if in prayer. “If only you had remembered this earlier, Mrs. Raisin.”
“They’re putting out a bulletin, asking him to come forward,” said John. “If he’s innocent, he will.”
“I’ve been thinking about ramblers,” said Agatha. “I mean, one never really notices them.”
“Not groups of ramblers,” commented Mrs. Bloxby with a certain edge in her voice. “But one, on his own, at night!”
“I know, I know,” mourned Agatha. “But the horror of Peggy’s murder drove it right out of my mind until today.”
“Bill was round this morning,” said John. “He says there is a whole hour your husband can’t account for.”
