Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘Oh, what? Oh, yes, that. Of course you must come. Next week. Perhaps I might be able to help you with some of your cases?’

  ‘No,’ said Bill firmly. ‘Don’t ever try to solve a crime again.’ Then he relented. ‘Not but what you haven’t done me a favour.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I confess I’d been following you around on my time off and getting the local bobby to report anything to me. Like you, I never could really believe it to be an accident. But Wilkes is more or less crediting me with solving the case because he would rather die than admit a member of the public could do anything to help. So when’s that dinner?’

  ‘Next Wednesday? Seven o’clock, say?’

  ‘Fine. Go back to sleep. I’ll see you then.’

  ‘Am I in Moreton-in-Marsh?’

  ‘No, Mircester General Hospital.’

  After he had gone, Agatha fished in the locker beside her bed and found her handbag. The pills had been taken out of it, she noticed. She opened her compact and stared at her face in the mirror and let out a squawk of dismay. She looked a wreck.

  ‘’Ere!’ Agatha looked across at the next bed. It contained an elderly woman who looked remarkably like Mrs Boggle. ‘What you done?’ she asked avidly. ‘All them police in ’ere.’

  ‘I solved a case for them,’ said Agatha grandly.

  ‘Garn,’ said the old horror. ‘Last one in that bed thought she was Mary Queen of Scots.’

  ‘Shut up,’ snarled Agatha, looking in the mirror and wondering whether the sticking plaster did not look, in fact, well, heroic.

  The day wore on. The television set at the end of the beds flickered through soap opera after soap opera. No one else called. Not even Mrs Bloxby.

  Well, that’s that, thought Agatha bleakly. Why did they bother to send flowers? Probably thought I was dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Agatha was told next day that an ambulance would be leaving the hospital at noon to take her home. She was rather pleased about that. Her home-coming in an ambulance should make the village sit up and take notice.

  She took the greetings cards off the bouquets of flowers around her bed to keep as a souvenir of her time in the Cotswolds. How odd that she had volunteered to help Bill with his cases, just as if she meant to stay. She asked a nurse to take the flowers to the children’s ward and then got dressed and went downstairs to wait for the ambulance. There was a shop in the entrance hall selling newspapers. She bought a pile of the local ones but there was no mention of Vera Cummings-Browne’s arrest. Perhaps it all leaked out too late for them to do anything about it.

  To her dismay, the ‘ambulance’ turned out to be a minibus which was taking various geriatric patients back to their local villages. Why does the sight of creaking old people make me feel so cruel and impatient? thought Agatha, watching them fumbling and stumbling on board. I’ll be old myself all too soon. She forced herself to get up to help an old man who was trying to get into the bus. He leered at her. ‘Keep your hands to yourself,’ he said. ‘I know your sort.’

  The rest of the passengers were all old women who shrieked with laughter and said, ‘You are a one, Arnie,’ and things like that, all of them evidently knowing each other very well.

  It was a calm, cool day with great fluffy clouds floating across a pale-blue sky. The old woman next to Agatha caught her attention by jabbing her painfully in the toes with her stick. ‘What happened to you then?’ she asked, peering at Agatha’s sticking-plaster-covered face. ‘Beat you up, did he?’

  ‘No,’ said Agatha frostily. ‘I was solving a murder case for the police.’

  ‘It’s the drink,’ said the old woman. ‘Mine used ter come home from the pub and lay into me something rotten. He’s dead now. It’s one thing you’ve got to say in favour of men, they die before we do.’

  ‘’Cept me,’ said Arnie. ‘I’m seventy-eight and still going strong.’

  More cackles. Agatha’s announcement about solving a murder case had bitten the dust. The minibus rolled lazily to a stop in a small hamlet and the woman next to Agatha was helped out. She looked at Agatha and said in farewell, ‘Don’t go making up stories to protect him. I did that. Different these days. If he’s bashing you, tell the police.’

  There was a murmur of approval from the other women.

  The bus moved off. It turned out to be a comprehensive tour of Cotswold villages as one geriatric after another was set down.

  Agatha was the last passenger. She felt dirty and weary as the bus rolled down into Carsely. ‘Where to?’ shouted the driver.

  ‘Left here,’ said Agatha. ‘Third cottage along on the left.’

  ‘Something going on,’ called the driver. ‘Big welcome. You been in the wars or something?’

  The ambulance stopped outside Agatha’s cottage. There was a big cheer. The band began to play ‘Hello Dolly.’ They were all there, all the village, and there was a banner hanging drunkenly over her doorway which said, WELCOME HOME.

  Mrs Bloxby was the first with a hug. Then the members of the Carsely Ladies’ Society. Then the landlord, Joe Fletcher, and the regulars from the Red Lion.

  Local photographers were busy clicking their cameras, local reporters stood ready.

  ‘Everyone inside,’ called Agatha, ‘and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  Soon her living-room was crowded, with an overflow stretching into the dining-room and kitchen as she told a rapt audience how she had solved The Case of the Poisoned Quiche. It was highly embroidered. But she did describe in glorious Technicolor how the brave Bill Wong had dragged her from the burning house, ‘his clothes in flames and his hands cut to ribbons.’

  ‘Such bravery,’ said Agatha, ‘is an example of the fine men we have in the British police force.’

  Some reporters scribbled busily; the more up-to-date used tape recorders. Agatha was about to hit the nationals, or rather, Bill Wong was. There had been two nasty stories recently about corrupt policemen, but the newspapers knew there was nothing people liked to read about more than a brave bobby.

  Next door, James Lacey stood in his front garden, burning with curiosity. The visit from Agatha had been enough. He had called on the vicarage and told Mrs Bloxby sternly that although he was grateful for the welcome to the village, he now wanted to be left strictly alone. He enjoyed his own company. He had moved to the country for peace and quiet. Mrs Bloxby had done her work well. So although he had watched the preparations for Agatha’s return, he did not know what she had done or what it had all been about. He wanted to walk along and ask someone but felt shy of doing so because he had said he wanted to be alone and he remembered he had added that he had no interest in what went on in the village or in anyone in it.

  One by one Agatha’s fan club was leaving. Doris Simpson was among the last to go. She handed Agatha a large brown paper parcel.

  ‘Why, what’s this, Doris?’ asked Agatha.

  ‘Me and Bert got talking about that gnome you gave us,’ said Doris firmly. ‘Those things are expensive and we don’t really have much interest in our garden and we know you must have liked it because you bought it. So we decided to give it back to you.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly accept it,’ said Agatha.

  ‘You must. We haven’t felt right about it.’

  Agatha, who had long begun to suspect that her cleaning lady had a will of iron, said feebly, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Anything else?’ called Joe Fletcher from the doorway.

  Agatha made a sudden decision. ‘Yes, there is,’ she said. ‘Take that “For Sale” sign down.’

  At last they had all gone. Agatha sat down, suddenly shivering. The full horror of what had happened to her at Vera’s hit her. She went upstairs and took a hot bath and changed into a nightgown and an old shabby blue wool dressing-gown. She peered in the bathroom mirror. There was a bald sore red patch at the front of her hair where Bill had pulled it out. She switched on the central heating and then threw logs on the fire, lit a match and then s
huddered and blew the match out. It would be a while before she could bear the sight of a fire.

  There was a tentative knock at the door. Still shivering and holding her dressing-gown tightly about her, she went to open it. James Lacey stood there, holding the kitten in its basket and the litter tray.

  ‘Bill Wong asked me to look after the cat for you,’ he said. He eyed her doubtfully. ‘I could look after it for another day if you’re not up to it.’

  ‘No, no,’ babbled Agatha. ‘Come in. I wonder how Bill got the cat? Of course, he would have taken the keys out of my bag in the hospital. How very good of you.’

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror. How awful she looked, and not a scrap of make-up on either!

  She carried the cat into the living-room and stooped and let it out of its basket and then took the litter tray into the kitchen. When she returned, James was sitting in one of her chairs staring thoughtfully at the large gnome which Doris had returned and Agatha had unwrapped. It was standing on the coffee-table leering horribly, like old Arnie on the minibus.

  ‘Would you like a gnome?’ asked Agatha.

  ‘No, thank you. It’s an unusual living-room ornament.’

  ‘It’s not really mine. You see . . .’

  There was a hammering at the door. Agatha swore under her breath and went to answer it. Midlands Television and the BBC. ‘Can’t you come back later?’ pleaded Agatha, casting a longing look towards the living-room. But then she saw the police car driving up as well. Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes had called.

  The television interviewers had a more understated version of Agatha’s story than the villagers had heard. Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes was interviewed saying sternly that the public should leave police matters to the police, as Mrs Raisin had nearly been killed and he had nearly lost one of his best officers, Agatha shrewdly guessing that when that appeared on the screens, his comments would be cut down to the simple fact that he had nearly lost one of his best officers. Everyone wanted a hero, and Bill Wong was to be the hero. Somehow in the middle of it all, James Lacey had slipped out. The television teams rushed off to find Bill Wong in Mircester, a policewoman with a recorder came in from the police car, and Wilkes got down to exhaustive questioning.

  At last they left, but the phone rang and rang as various nationals phoned up to add to the stories sent in by the local men. By eleven o’clock, the phone fell silent. Agatha fed the cat and then carried it up to bed. It lay on her feet, purring gently. I’d better think of a name for it, she thought sleepily.

  The phone rang downstairs. ‘Now what?’ groaned Agatha aloud, gently lifting the cat off her feet and wondering why she had not bothered to get a phone extension put in the bedroom. She went downstairs and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Aggie!’ It was Roy, his voice sharp with excitement. ‘I thought I’d never get through. I saw you on the telly.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Agatha. She shivered. ‘Can I call you back tomorrow, Roy?’

  ‘Look, sweetie, there seems to be more publicity comes out of that little village than out of all the streets of London. The idea is this. Maybe the telly will be back for a follow-up. I’ll run down there tomorrow and you can tell them how I helped you to solve the mystery. I phoned Mr Wilson at home and he thinks it’s a great idea.’

  ‘Roy, the story will be dead tomorrow. You know it, I know it. Let me go back to bed. I won’t be up to seeing visitors for some time.’

  ‘Well, I must say I thought you might have mentioned me,’ complained Roy. ‘Who was it went with you to Ancombe? I’ve phoned round all the papers but the night-desks say if you want to volunteer a quote about me, fine, but they’re not interested in taking it from me, so be a sweetie and phone them, there’s a dear.’

  ‘I am going to bed, Roy, and that’s that. Finish.’

  ‘Aren’t we being just a bit of a selfish bitch hogging all the limelight?’

  ‘Good night, Roy,’ said Agatha and put down the receiver. Then she turned back and lifted it off the hook.

  ‘Well, I want to meet this Raisin woman,’ said James Lacey’s sister, Mrs Harriet Camberwell, a week later. ‘I know you want to be left alone. But I’m dying of curiosity. They gave a lot of play to that detective, Wong, but she solved it, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she did, Harriet. But she’s very odd. Do you know, she keeps a garden gnome on her coffee-table as an ornament! She walks down the street muttering and talking to herself.’

  ‘How sweet. I simply must meet her. Run along and ask her to drop by for a cup of tea.’

  ‘If I do that, will you go back to your husband and leave me alone?’

  ‘Of course. Go and get her and I’ll make the tea and cut some sandwiches.’

  Agatha was still recovering from the shock of being nearly burnt to death. She had not bothered about trying to see James, waiting until her cuts healed up and her hair grew back. When that happened, she thought, she would plan a campaign.

  The weather had turned pleasantly warm instead of the furnace heat of the days before the storm. She had the doors and windows open and was lying in her old loose cotton dress on the kitchen floor, tossing balls of foil into the air to amuse the kitten, when James walked in.

  ‘I should have knocked,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but the door was open.’ Agatha scrambled to her feet. ‘I wonder whether you would like to step along for a cup of tea.’

  ‘I must change,’ said Agatha wildly.

  ‘I’ve obviously come at a bad moment. Maybe another time.’

  ‘No! I’ll come now,’ said Agatha, frightened he would escape.

  They walked along to his cottage. No sooner was she seated, no sooner was Agatha admiring his handsome profile, which was turned towards the kitchen door, when an elegant woman walked in carrying a tea-tray.

  ‘Mrs Raisin, Mrs Camberwell. Harriet, darling, this is Mrs Raisin. Harriet’s dying to hear all about your adventures, Mrs Raisin.’

  Agatha felt small and dingy. But then women like Harriet Camberwell always made her feel small and dingy. She was a very tall woman, nearly as tall as James, slim, flat-chested, square hunting shoulders, clever upper-class face, expensive hair-style, tailored cotton dress, cool amused eyes.

  Agatha began to talk. The villagers would have been amazed to hear her dull rendering of her adventures. She stayed only long enough to briefly recount her story, drink one cup of tea, eat one sandwich, and then she firmly took her leave.

  At least Bill Wong was coming for dinner. Be thankful for small comforts, Agatha, she told herself sternly. But she had thought of James Lacey a lot and her days had taken on life and colour. Still, there was no need to look a fright simply because her guest was only Bill.

  She did her hair and put on make-up and changed into the dress she had worn for the auction. Dinner – taught this time by Mrs Bloxby – was to be simple: grilled steaks, baked potatoes, fresh asparagus, fresh fruit salad and cream. Champagne on ice for the celebration, for Bill Wong had been elevated to detective sergeant.

  It was a new, slimmer Bill who walked in the door at seven o’clock. He had been keeping in shape rigorously ever since he had seen his rather chubby features on television.

  He talked of this and that, noticing that Agatha’s bearlike eyes were rather sad and she seemed to have lost a great deal of animation. He reflected that the attempt on her life must have hit her harder than he would have expected.

  She was not contributing much to the conversation and so he searched around for another topic to amuse her. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said as she slid the steaks under the grill, ‘your neighbour has given up breaking hearts in the village. He told Mrs Bloxby he wanted to be left alone and was quite sharpish about it. Then, when the ladies of Carsely back off, he is visited by an elegant woman whom he introduces to all and sundry in Harvey’s as Mrs Camberwell. He calls her “darling”. They make a nice pair. Mrs Mason was heard to remark crossly that she had always thought him an odd sort of man anyway an
d that she had only taken around a cake to be friendly.

  ‘And guess what?’

  ‘What?’ said Agatha testily.

  ‘Your old persecutor, Mrs Boggle, ups and asks him point-blank in the middle of Harvey’s if he means to marry Mrs Camberwell, everyone thinking her a widow. And he replies in surprise, “Why the devil should I marry my own sister?” So I gather the ladies of Carsely are now thinking that although they cannot really call on him after what he said to Mrs Bloxby, perhaps they can get up a little party or dinner and lure him into one of their homes.’ Bill laughed heartily.

  Agatha turned around, her face suddenly radiant. ‘We haven’t opened the champagne and we must celebrate!’

  ‘Celebrate what?’ asked Bill in sudden suspicion.

  ‘Why, your promotion. Dinner won’t be long.’

  Bill opened the champagne and poured them a glass each.

  ‘Is there anything you would like me to do, Mrs Raisin, before dinner? Lay the table?’

  ‘No, that’s done. But you could start off by calling me Agatha, and there is something else. There’s a sign in the front garden and a sledge hammer beside it. Could you hammer it into the ground?’

  ‘Of course. Not selling again, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m naming this cottage. I’m tired of everyone still calling it Budgen’s cottage. It belongs to me.’

  He went out into the garden and picked up the sign and hammered its pole into the ground and then stood back to admire the effect.

  Brown lettering on white, it proclaimed boldly: RAISIN’S COTTAGE.

  Bill grinned. Agatha was in Carsely to stay.

  Extract from

  Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

  out in paperback

  published by Robinson, £5.99

  At the end of a week, she headed back to Carsely, carrying two cat baskets this time.

  For the first time, she had an odd feeling of coming home. It was a sunny day, with a faint hint of warmth in the air. Snowdrops were fluttering shyly at village doorsteps.