Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body ar-21

by M C Beaton

  Agatha felt a twinge of jealousy.

  "Goodness, it's cold," said Miriam. "You've got coal in the scuttle over there. Why not throw some of that on the fire and get up a blaze?"

  "It's not smokeless," protested Penelope Timson, a tall thin woman with very large hands and feet and stooped shoulders, as if she had become bent after years of bending down to speak to smaller parishioners. She was wearing two cardigans over a sweater, a baggy tweed skirt, and woollen stockings which ended surprisingly in a pair of fluffy pink slippers in the shape of two large pink mice. "You know what Mr. Sunday is like. He tours around looking for smoke. We're supposed to burn smokeless."

  "Oh, never mind him. Courage. Chuck on a few lumps," urged Miriam.

  Bowing to a stronger will, Penelope picked up the tongs and deposited a few lumps. A blaze sprang up but the fire smoked even more.

  "Damn, I brought brandy and I've left it in the car. I'll go and get it," said Miriam. "Don't wait for me. Get started."

  "I thought we weren't supposed to drink and drive," muttered Agatha.

  "She's probably thinking of herself," said Mrs. Bloxby. "She can walk home. I wonder why she bothered to drive."

  "I wonder why anyone local bothered to drive," said Agatha. "Couldn't they just walk?"

  "It's only in cities that people walk, I think," said Mrs. Bloxby. "These days, in the country, people seem to drive even a few yards."

  Penelope called the meeting to order. Agatha's thoughts drifted off. Perhaps she could rescue the little that was left of her holiday and go somewhere warm. But she didn't like beach holidays anymore, and Miriam's skin was surely an example of what happened to women who baked in the sun. It was all so stupid, reflected Agatha, this obsession with tanning. Understandable in the old days when only the rich went abroad in the winter and people wanted to appear to be jet-setters, but now the British from every walk of life flew out to exotic destinations, visiting a tanning parlour before they left. I mean, thought Agatha, you wouldn't leave a fine piece of leather out in the sun to dry and crack, so why do it with your skin? She remembered the slogan, "Black is beautiful." Quite right, too. But if she invented a slogan saying, "White is beautiful," she'd probably end up before the Race Relations Board.

  Then she became aware that Penelope was asking, "Where is Mrs. Courtney? She should be back. I hope she hasn't slipped on ice."

  "I'll go and look for her," said Miss Simms eagerly.

  The meeting went on. Descriptions of the iniquities of Grudge Sunday wandered in and out of Agatha's brain. She wondered where her ex-husband was and reflected on how glad she was that she had got over her obsession for him, and yet, how empty life seemed without it.

  "Found her! Mrs. Courtney had to go home for the hooch. It wasn't in the car," cried Miss Simms from the doorway. She came into the room followed by Miriam. Both were carrying bottles. Penelope went off to find glasses and returned with a tray full of them.

  The room was soon full of genteel murmurs--"Oh, I am sure one wouldn't hurt." "Such a cold night, one does need something." "Ooh, not so much!"--as brandy was poured.

  "I think it's going to snow," said Miriam. "The wind's getting up."

  "Too cold for snow," said Agatha, prompted by a sudden desire to contradict Miriam on any subject she cared to bring up.

  The room was filling up with smoke. Penelope batted at it ineffectually with her large hands. "Must get the sweep in," she said.

  She stared at the French windows and screamed. The tray she was holding with a few remaining glasses fell to the floor. Everyone stood up, turned and looked towards the French windows and soon the smoky air was full of cries.

  His face pressed against the glass, his bloodied hands smearing the windowpanes as he slowly sank down, was John Sunday. Seen dimly through the steamy glass, it all looked unreal, like something out of a horror movie.

  Agatha was never to forget that long night. They were trapped in the cold vicarage drawing room. The Scenes of Crimes Operatives in their white suits worked outside the windows while a policeman stood guard. They seemed to take forever. Then there was a long wait for the arrival of the Home Office pathologist. After he was finished, Detective Inspector Wilkes, with Agatha's friend Detective Sergeant Bill Wong and one of Agatha's pet hates Detective Sergeant Collins, an acidulous woman, arrived. One by one they were interviewed. Bill went on as if he did not know Agatha, apart from muttering to her that he would call on her sometime. Collins insisted they were all breathalysed before they were pronounced fit to drive home. Miriam and Miss Simms were taken off for questioning, being the only two to have left the room.

  To add to all the misery, when Agatha and Mrs. Bloxby left the vicarage, it had warmed up just enough for snow and it was coming down heavily. The cars which had been parked in front and in back of Agatha's had already driven off.

  Snow danced hypnotically in front of her and whitened the road in front as she drove along the narrow lanes.

  Agatha dropped Mrs. Bloxby at the vicarage in Carsely and then drove home, edging her way through the white wilderness.

  Her sleepy cats came to meet her. Agatha glanced at her watch. Five in the morning! She was bone-tired but the palms of her hands were tingling. A murder!

  Her last waking thought was that she must get back to the office.

  She awoke late the next day to find snow piled against the windows. The central heating did not seem to be coping very well. Huddled in a dressing gown, Agatha went down to her living room and lit the fire that her cleaner, Doris Simpson, had laid ready in the grate. Then she went through to the kitchen to prepare her breakfast--one cup of black coffee. She retreated to the living room and phoned Toni Gilmour, knowing that her young assistant lived around the corner from the office and would be on duty.

  "How was your holiday?" asked Toni.

  "Foul. I'll tell you about it later. There's been a murder."

  Agatha outlined what had happened, ending with "John Sunday appears to have made so many enemies around the villages that it's going to be hard to find the culprit. Maybe he made some enemies at work. Could you check with the Mircester Health and Safety Board? And ask Patrick to find out from his old police contacts if there's any news of exactly how he died."

  Patrick Mulligan, a retired policeman, had worked for Agatha for some time along with Phil Marshall, an elderly man from Carsely, Sharon Gold, a bouncy young friend of Toni's, and Mrs. Freedman, the agency's secretary. Paul Kenson and Fred Auster, who had briefly worked for her, had left to work for a security firm in Iraq.

  Agatha fretted as she glared out at the still falling snow. She made herself a cheese sandwich and another cup of coffee and switched on the television to BBC news. There was a global warming demonstration in Trafalgar Square with protestors nearly obliterated on the screen by the driving snow. She sat patiently through the whole of the news but there was nothing on the murder of John Sunday.

  The day dragged on in its dreary whiteness. Agatha's two cats, Hodge and Boswell, sat patiently by the kitchen door, wondering why Agatha did not let them out.

  The phone rang at midday. It was Toni. She said that Patrick had little news other than that the police had said it looked as if Sunday had been stabbed with something like a kitchen knife. He had tried to defend himself and there were cuts on his hands and forearms.

  Agatha relapsed into a snowbound torpor. She fell asleep on the sofa in the afternoon, only awakening an hour later at the ringing of her doorbell.

  On opening the door, she found Miriam Courtney on her doorstep, unbuckling a pair of skis. "The snow's stopped and I thought I'd come and see you," said Miriam. "The gritters haven't been out on the village roads but the farmers had snowploughed them so I put on my skis and came over. Thank goodness the snow has stopped. Aren't you going to ask me in?"

  "Sorry," said Agatha. "Come in."

  Miriam propped her skis against the outside wall. "Come through to the kitchen," said Agatha. She had taken a dislike to Miriam but decided that an
y company was preferable to none. "Coffee?"

  "Sure." Miriam took off her padded coat and woolly hat and sat down at the kitchen table.

  "What brings you?" asked Agatha, plugging in the electric coffee percolator.

  "I heard you have a detective agency and I want to hire you. I'm prime suspect."

  "Why?"

  "Because I was the one person, apart from Miss Simms, who was out of the room for any length of time. Furthermore, I am on record as having called at the offices of the Health and Safety Board in Mircester and threatened to kill Sunday."

  "Why?"

  "Because in the summer I open the manor to the public twice a week. It's an old Tudor building. I get a good number of tours. Sunday said the steps up to the front door made it impossible for the disabled to have access. I would have to have a ramp. The ramp they suggested was a great metal thing that seemed to stretch halfway down the drive. I said in the past that the rare visitor in a wheelchair was just wheeled backwards up the very shallow steps. Sunday said that unless I had the ramp, I could no longer open the house to the public. I said I'd kill the stupid bureaucratic bastard. The police turned up this morning at the manor with a search warrant."

  "How did they get through the snow?" asked Agatha, putting down a cup of coffee in front of Miriam.

  "They got through somehow in Land Rovers. Took all my kitchen knives away. I want you to find out who really did it. I'm an outsider in that village. The trouble's started already. The two women who clean for me phoned up this morning to say they would no longer work for me."

  "Why do you need to open the manor to the public? Do you need the money?"

  "Not a bit of it. But I enjoy showing the place off. I've done an awful lot of restoration."

  "I haven't a contract here but I'll get the office to send you one to sign," said Agatha. "Can you think of anyone?"

  "He offended so many people, I can't suggest where you should start. Listen! That's the gritter at last."

  "Good," said Agatha. "I've been getting cabin fever sitting here."

  "Isn't that someone at your door?"

  Agatha went to answer. The muffled figure of Sir Charles Fraith, one of Agatha's closest friends, stood there. "Gosh, I thought I'd never get here," he said, stamping snow from his boots. "I had to borrow the gardener's Land Rover. My drive is like the Cresta run. I heard about the murder on the morning news."

  Charles followed Agatha into the kitchen and she introduced him to Miriam. "A 'sir,' " said Miriam. "How grand!" To Agatha's irritation, she was almost coquettish.

  Miriam went on to explain the reason for her visit. "Oh, Aggie will sort you out," said Charles, helping himself to coffee.

  Charles was a medium-sized man with immaculately barbered hair and neat features. Agatha often thought he was as self-contained as her cats. He came and went in and out of her life, often using her cottage as a sort of hotel.

  "You didn't use your keys," said Agatha. "Have you lost the keys to my cottage?"

  "No, but you got shirty that last time I just walked in."

  Miriam looked from one to the other, her eyes sparkling with interest. "Are you two an item?"

  "No!" said Agatha. "But no time like the present. I'd like to get back to Odley Cruesis and see what I can dig up."

  "I'll drive you over," said Charles. "How did you get here, Miriam?"

  "On my skis."

  Charles laughed. "What a lady. I've got a roof rack for your skis. We can all go together."

  Agatha turned away quickly to hide the scowl on her face. She had few friends and was jealous and possessive of the ones she had. "I'll just go upstairs and change."

  As Agatha put on warm clothes, she could hear Miriam's peals of laughter followed by appreciative chuckles from Charles.

  I bet the fact she's employing me is a blind, thought Agatha. I bet she did it. Please God, let Miriam be the murderer.

  Chapter Two

  "This is my showpiece," said Miriam proudly, leading them into the main hall of the manor.

  Charles looked around at the gleaming suits of armour, the long refectory table, the crossed halberds on the wall, the tattered battle flags and the imitation gas-fired flambeaux and suppressed a smile. He doubted if there was one authentic piece in the room. But Agatha was obviously jealous of Miriam and he felt like winding her up further. Maybe Agatha might begin to recognise some of her worst qualities, such as pushiness, in Miriam and tone down a bit.

  "Lovely!" he exclaimed.

  Agatha felt it all looked like a stage set. "Now, can I get you something to drink?" asked Miriam. "I feel we are all going to be great friends." But she turned her back on Agatha as she said this and smiled broadly at Charles.

  "I think it would be a good idea if we got started," said Agatha loudly. "Let's begin at the vicarage."

  A mobile police unit had been set up in the little triangle of village green in the centre of Odley Cruesis. Police tape fenced off the front of the vicarage. A policeman stood on guard outside the door.

  Agatha ducked under the tape, followed by Miriam and Charles. "You can't come in here," protested the policeman.

  "The murder took place outside," said Agatha, pointing to the tented-off French windows. "We are making a social call."

  The policeman looked across at the mobile police unit as if for help and then to the tent where shadowy figures moved under halogen lights. "Wait here," he ordered, and strode off towards the police unit.

  As they shivered in the snow and waited, Agatha asked Miriam, "What brought you to the Cotswolds?"

  "I came here on a holiday years ago and never forgot it. So beautiful and peaceful. Well, up till now, that is. Oh, here's the copper."

  "You can go in," said the policeman. "Mrs. Courtney?"

  "Yes, that's me."

  "You're to come with me to the police unit for more questioning."

  "Really!" complained Miriam, exasperated. "You've already kept me up most of the night. You'll be hearing from my lawyer as soon as he can get through the snow."

  She walked off with the policeman and Agatha went up to the door of the vicarage and rang the bell.

  Penelope answered the door. She was wearing the same outfit as she had been the night before. Agatha wondered if she had slept in her clothes. Penelope blinked at them myopically. "If you are the press," she said, "I have nothing to say."

  "I'm Agatha Raisin," said Agatha, "and this is my friend, Sir Charles Fraith."

  Penelope beamed. "I am so sorry I didn't recognise you, Sir Charles. I attended a fete on the grounds of your beautiful house last year. Do come in." She seemed to have forgotten Agatha's existence.

  The drawing room of the old vicarage was colder than ever. A two-bar electric heater had been placed in front of the ash-filled hearth. A tall, thin man came into the room. "This is my husband," said Penelope, making introductions all round. He shook hands with them. "I'm Giles Timson," he said in a high, reedy voice. "Bad business, heh? Do sit down."

  "I am a friend of Mrs. Bloxby," began Agatha, settling herself in an armchair beside the heater. "I run a detective agency. Mrs. Courtney has hired me to investigate."

  "Why?" he asked. He looked like a surprised heron looking down at an odd fish in a pool as he stood over Agatha. He had grey hair and a long, thin nose.

  "Miriam seems to be considered number one suspect."

  "I'm sure the police will find the culprit," he said.

  "So distressing," fluted Penelope. "I mean, it's not a case of who would have wanted to murder John Sunday, but who wouldn't?"

  "My dear . . ."

  "Well, Giles, you yourself said you would like to murder the little man."

  "What prompted that?" asked Charles.

  "I don't think . . . ," began the vicar nervously, but Penelope said eagerly, "Oh, you remember, he objected to candles in the church. He said they might fall over and burn someone. You were so angry, Giles. 'I could kill you, you little insect,' that's what you said. Giles has quite a temper."<
br />
  "I am glad they don't have hanging any more," said the vicar, "or my dear wife would have me on the scaffold. I'll be in my study if anyone wants me." His pale grey eyes raked up and down his wife's thin figure. "Didn't you change your clothes this morning?"

  "There wasn't time. The police were here all night and I slept in the armchair by the fire."

  "Tcha!" said the vicar, and left the room.

  "Was there anyone here last night who might have a reason to kill Sunday?" asked Agatha.

  "Oh, dear. I mean, I don't think anyone would have murdered him, but the reason for the meeting was that everyone had run afoul of the dreadful man at one time or another."

  "What sort of things?"

  "Mrs. Carrie Brother was charged by him because her dog fouled the village green. Mr. and Mrs. Summer and Mr. and Mrs. Beagle. They usually decorate their cottages with Christmas lights but have been stopped this year. All those regulations."

  "Where were they seated?" asked Agatha.

  "It's so hard to remember. I think the Beagles were by the fire and the Summers over by the door. But it would need to be someone who left the room, wouldn't it? There's only Mrs. Courtney and Miss Simms. Perhaps Miss Simms?"

  "Did she voice a dislike of Sunday?"

  "Well, no, but I mean, she is not really quite what one would expect at a ladies society."

  Agatha bristled. "Miss Simms has been a very good secretary for some time."

  "I don't think it can be Miriam," said Charles with a sideways glinting smile at Agatha. "She seems such a jolly, straightforward sort of person."

  "Exactly," said Penelope. "And she has done so much for the village. Such a generous contribution to the church restoration fund and she always makes the manor available for village parties and events."

  Again that stab of jealousy hit Agatha. Would anyone praise her in such a way? Sometimes she felt she was living on the Cotswolds rather than in the Cotswolds. Her work at the agency meant she was often out of the village for long periods of time. In the past she had raised funds for various charities but certainly not of late. And the recession meant that people were always arriving to take up the houses the new impoverished were leaving, so few people would remember her actually doing anything to help the village of Carsely. Agatha wished she had paid more attention to the people in the room the previous night.