by M C Beaton
By the time Charles arrived early on Saturday morning, Agatha was beginning to feel she had enjoyed a short holiday.
As she walked to the village hall with Charles, she noticed a crowd of people streaming in the same direction. “There’s going to be masses of odd reports,” warned Charles. “A lot of people might start imagining things. Or daft things like, “My mother’s picture fell off the wall, so I knew something bad had happened,” that kind of thing.”
“Let’s hope there’s some nugget among the lot,” said Agatha, “because if there isn’t, I can’t think where we would try next.”
There was an air of excitement in the hall as Agatha and Charles mounted to the stage. Agatha noticed the local press were there.
She checked the microphone and then began to speak. “This unsolved murder is affecting the tranquillity of our village,” she said. “Now, you will have found on each chair a sheet of paper. I want you all to think back to the night Melissa Sheppard was murdered and to the day James Lacey was attacked. I want you to write down anything out of the way you might have seen. You may have not told the police because at the time it seemed silly or insignificant. I will now move to that table by the door. When you have finished, give me what you have written. Please, do try very hard. I find it strange that no one saw anything at all.”
Agatha and Charles descended from the platform. “Did you supply them with pens?” asked Charles. “Or time will be taken up as everyone tries to borrow a pen from everyone else.”
“Rats! I forgot,” said Agatha.
“I’ll nip along to the village store and get some.”
Charles was soon back with boxes of biros, which he began to pass around. Some people were writing busily, some were chewing the ends of their pens and staring at the ceiling, and some were casting covert glances at their neighbours’ papers, like children at an exam.
At last, one by one, they began to leave, placing their papers in front of Agatha. With a sinking heart, she noticed most of the first ones had simply been scrawled with, “Didn’t see anything.”
Agatha stood up and shouted to the remainder, “Even if you heard anything.”
At last, after an hour, everyone had left. Agatha and Charles; and Mrs. Bloxby stacked away the chairs. “Better get this lot home,” said Agatha, “and pray there’s something.”
♦
When they reached Agatha’s cottage, Charles said, “Let’s have a drink and something to eat. It’s going to be a long day.”
Agatha made a fry-up of sausage, eggs, bacon and chips, Charles’s favourite food.
“Now,” she said impatiently, “let’s get to work.”
They moved through to the sitting-room. Agatha divided the papers into two piles.
They began to read. “Here’s an unsigned one,” said Charles. “It says, ‘You murdering bitch, you did it yourself.’”
“Put it to one side,” said Agatha. “I wonder who could have written that? There were a few strange faces there.”
“And children. Might have been a nasty child.”
Agatha ploughed through some quite long descriptions of what people had been doing on the night of Melissa’s death. They seemed to think they had to furnish an alibi. “Listen to this one,” said Agatha. “It’s from Mrs. Perry, who lives out on the Ancombe Road. “I made ham and chips for me and Dad at six o’clock and then we went to the Red Lion for a drink. Dad had half a pint and I had a shandy. Then we walked home. I let the cat out. We switched on the telly. Rotten film where people took their clothes off and did you-know-what. Me and Dad could hardly bear to watch. Then we went to bed after I had got our hot-water bottles ready. Hoping this finds you as it leaves me. Amy Perry.” What good’s all that supposed to do?”
“Plough on,” murmured Charles. “So far all I’ve got apart from the bitch letter are alibis and superstitious warnings. “The house grew suddenly cold,” that sort of thing. “The fur on my cat’s back rose.””
“Here’s another irritating one,” remarked Agatha. “It’s from Mrs. Pamela Green. Widow. Tall, rangy, acidulous. Look at the italic handwriting! Pure eighteenth-century. “I could not sleep on the Night of Mrs. Sheppard’s Unfortunate death. It is one of the great Disadvantages of age. As is my wont, I put the leash on Queenie” – that’s her dog, nasty, vicious little bunch of hair – “and went out. The roads were deserted, except for a Child. I said to her, Why aren’t you home in bed? And she said cheekily I ought to mind my own Business. I had let Queenie off the leash and she had disappeared into one of the gardens. I went to Fetch her, and when I returned, the Child had gone. I would like to say to you, Mrs. Raisin, that at your age, it would become You better to confine yourself to Charitable Pursuits and leave Police Matters to the police.” Horrible cow.”
“I wonder who the child was,” said Charles. “Are there any children in this village of the geriatric and retired?”
“A lot down at the council houses. Press on.”
After some hours, Agatha groaned, “Well, what a waste of time.”
“Let’s swap,” said Charles. “You take my bundle. I’ll take yours. We may see something the other has missed.”
They both began to read again.
At last Agatha said wearily, “What a waste of space!”
“We’ve got that child to look for. Maybe we should call on Mrs. Green tomorrow and get a description.”
“Did I tell you she wears glasses like the end of milk bottles?” said Agatha. “No? Well, she does. We’ll never get anywhere.”
“Let’s go over them all again in the morning,” said Charles, stifling a yawn.
♦
After a late meal, Agatha went up to bed and Charles went off to the spare bedroom.
Agatha found sleep would not come. Jumbled thoughts about the murder and all the people they had questioned drifted in and out of her brain. At last she fell asleep and plunged down into a dream where she was dressed in white, on her wedding day, and standing at the altar of Carsely Church. She could not make out the features of the man she was marrying. Beside her stood Mrs. Bloxby as maid of honour. “You shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered in Agatha’s dream. “You were unhappy with James and now you’ll be unhappy with him. Remember what happened to poor Mrs. Allan. People who have escaped from one unhappy marriage go out and do the same thing again, choose the same type.”
“Shut up,” mumbled Agatha in her sleep. “No one’s going to stop me getting married. I don’t want to be alone.” She was conscious of her husband-to-be turning and walking away from her down the aisle. She tried to turn and call to him, to stop him, but she could not form the words. She must try to call to him. She must call him back. She must get married.
She awoke to find Charles shaking her. “What’s up?” she cried.
“You were having one hell of a nightmare, groaning and crying.”
“Oh, that,” said Agatha, blinking in the light. “Such a silly dream. I dreamt I was getting married and Mrs. Bloxby was warning me it would all turn out like my marriage to James. She said, like Mrs. Allan, people always went and married the same type of person when they married again.”
Charles sat down on the bed. “Wait a minute. Let’s think about this.”
“It was only a stupid dream.”
“But Mrs. Bloxby said that in the case of Mrs. Allan, she had married the same type of person, and that people do.”
Agatha stared at him. “Do you mean that in some way Megan Sheppard might be like Melissa?”
“Could be. Remember James was trying to find out about another psychopath.”
“Pass me my dressing-gown,” said Agatha, swinging her legs out of bed. “Those papers downstairs.”
“What about them?”
“Mrs. Green said she met a child. A child! With Megan’s girlish appearance and Mrs. Green’s bad eyesight, she could have met Megan!”
“Bit far-fetched, but I’m game to try anything.”
They went downstairs and began t
o look through the papers again. “Here’s Mrs. Green’s paper. Is there anything else about a child?”
They settled down to go through the papers again. “Nothing,” said Charles at last.
“Let’s see Mrs. Green in the morning.”
∨ The Love from Hell ∧
10
BUT in the morning, both Agatha and Charles were beginning to think that they had leaped at the idea of the child’s being Megan, of somehow Melissa and Megan having the same personalities.
“Might as well have a go anyway,” said Charles. “We’re at a dead end otherwise and all that church-hall business will have been a waste of time.”
Agatha and Charles walked out to Mrs. Green’s cottage, which lay up the hill on the road leading out of the village. It was a mellow day with misty golden sunlight flooding the countryside. “If we don’t get anything out of this,” said Agatha suddenly, “I’m going to forget about the whole thing.” She waved an arm to encompass the sunny village. “Ever since James left, I’ve been wandering around in darkness. I want to start living again.”
“Without James?”
“Yes, without James. Even if by some miracle I found him, even if he wanted to come back to me, it wouldn’t work. I kept expecting him to change and he kept expecting me to change, and neither of us could.”
“You haven’t been smoking. That’s a start.”
“But how long does it take for the craving to go away?”
“You could stop carrying cigarettes in your handbag.”
“Works for me. As long as I’ve got them with me, I feel the strength to keep on resisting them.”
“If you say so,” said Charles. “This the cottage?”
“Yes. Here goes.”
Mrs. Green answered the door and looked on Agatha Raisin with disfavour. “Oh, it’s you.”
“I found what you wrote in your report very interesting,” said Agatha, giving her that crocodile smile one gives people one doesn’t like. “May we come in?”
“No.”
“You said on the night Melissa was murdered you saw a child,” said Charles. “Can you describe this child?”
Mrs. Green was a snob and her face softened at the sound of Charles’s upper-class voice. “It was dark, Sir Charles, and…Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you.” Charles stepped past her into the cottage and she promptly shut the door in Agatha’s face.
Face flaming, Agatha opened the door and followed them into the cottage parlour, which was a dark room in which framed photographs covered every surface. The darkness of the room was caused by the leaves of a large wisteria growing outside the win –: dow and by the leaves of a large cheese plant just inside the window. Mrs. Green’s autocratic face swam in the gloom.
“I would say she was in her early teens,” she said. “She was chewing gum, a disgusting habit, and had one of those little rucksacks on her back that young people affect these days instead of carrying a handbag.”
“Colour of hair?” asked Charles.
“I couldn’t really tell.”
“What was she wearing?” asked Agatha.
“Shorts with a bib top and these ugly boots they all wear these days.”
“Did you tell the police?” asked Charles.
“Of course not. They are looking for a murderer, not a child. And if I may say so, you would be better off leaving the whole thing to the police. What do we pay taxes for? I suppose such nosiness is understandable in the case of a person like Mrs. Raisin, but you, Sir Charles, should know better.”
“You forget,” said Agatha icily, “that my husband is missing.”
“Poor Mr. Lacey. I am not surprised. According to the people of this village, you led him a dog’s life.”
Agatha, who had taken a seat on a sofa, rose to her feet. “You are a nasty, acidulous old bat and I hope you rot in hell.” She stormed out.
Charles rose as well. “Just one thing,” he said to Mrs. Green, who was gasping and goggling. “What was this child’s hair like? I mean, long, short, pigtails?”
She looked up at him through her thick glasses. “It was in little clumps at either side and tied with ribbons. Now, I must say, Sir Charles, I do not know what you see in that woman. I don’t – ”
Charles simply walked out. Agatha was standing outside, lighting a cigarette. He plucked it out of her hand and threw it into Mrs. Green’s garden and then waltzed her down the road. “What’s up with you?” cried Agatha, disengaging herself when she could.
“The child wore its hair in bunches, or clumps, as she called them, and tied with ribbons. Now, who do we know wears her hair like that?”
“Megan,” breathed Agatha.
“What do we do now? Go to the police?”
“No, I want to go and see her and confront her.”
“Might not be safe.”
“You’ll be with me.”
“I’m not much protection against a psychopath wielding a hammer. But she won’t be on her own. Sheppard’ll be there. And how did she get from Oxford to Carsely and back without her husband knowing about it?”
“Taxi?” said Agatha.
“I’m sure the police will have checked that. And buses.”
“Unless Sheppard was in on it. If only we could make sure he’s not at home when we call.”
“I think that could be arranged,” said Charles. “Let’s get home and I’ll phone him and say there’s been a break-in at his shop.”
“What if she goes with him?”
“We’ll chance that. If not, we’ll need to wait until Monday morning, when he goes to work.”
They hurried back to Lilac Lane. Charles looked up the Sheppards’s number in the phone book. “Don’t listen,” he said to Agatha. “I’m going to disguise my voice and I can’t do it with you listening. I’ve got to pretend to be a copper.”
Agatha went into the kitchen. She took out her packet of cigarettes and then put them away again.
She heard the murmur of Charles’s voice and then he came into the kitchen. “That’s it,” he said. “Let’s go.”
♦
Charles drove quickly to Blockley, hoping he did not meet Luke Sheppard driving out of the village. He parked in front of the Sheppards’s cottage and took a deep breath. “Here we go, Aggie,” he said.
Megan answered the door. “You again,” she said. “What now?”
“May we come in?” asked Charles, smiling at her. “We have some news for you.”
“I suppose. Luke isn’t here. There’s been a break-in at his shop.”
They followed Megan as they had done before, out into the garden. “So what have you got to tell me?”
Charles opened his mouth to start with a diplomatic way of approaching the subject, but Agatha said brutally, “You murdered Melissa. You were seen in the village at the time of her death. We have a witness.”
Megan sat very still, the pupils of her eyes seeming huge. Then she laughed. “Nice try. I was in Oxford all night. How was I supposed to get from Oxford to Carsely?”
“I don’t know,” said Agatha. “But we have this witness. It places you at the scene of the murder.”
“And what do the police have to say to that?”
“We haven’t told them yet,” said Agatha.
“Why not?”
“We wanted to know what you had to say for yourself.”
“Aren’t we all supposed to be in the manor-house library?” jeered Megan. “While the great detective accuses and the guilty one breaks down? Why don’t you both take your fairy-tales and run along, or I will call the police and charge you with harassment.”
“It was you James found out about,” said Agatha doggedly. “You were sectioned at the same time as Melissa.”
“I’m going to count to ten, and if you’re not out of here by the time I have finished, I am going to call the police. One…”
“Come on, Aggie,” said Charles.
“Two…”
Agatha rose reluctantly to h
er feet.
“Three…”
Charles urged Agatha through the cottage. “Four…” Megan’s voice chanted.
Outside, Charles said. “That’s it. We’re going to see Bill Wong.”
“What can he do that we can’t?” demanded Agatha. “We’ve got a suspect, we’ve got a witness. We’ve got to show Bill where to look.”
♦
Mrs. Wong looked outraged when they asked to speak to Bill. “It’s Sunday,” she protested, “and we’re about to have Sunday dinner.”
“Bill!” shouted Agatha.
Bill appeared behind his mother, who was blocking them off on the doorstep. “What is it, Agatha?” he asked.
“We’ve found the murderer.”
“You’d better come in. Do stand aside, Ma.”
Mrs. Wong backed off, mumbling under her bream. Bill led them out into the garden. “Sit down,” he said. “Tell me about it.”
Agatha took a deep breath and began to explain about how Mrs. Green thought she had seen a child on the night of the murder, about how the description of the ‘child’ fitted with the description of Megan Sheppard.
“But why?” asked Bill.
“Wait a minute,” said Agatha, screwing up her face in concentration. “Something’s coming. What about this? James was inquiring if there was a possibility of one psychopath befriending another. What if Melissa and Megan met in that psychiatric unit years ago, when Megan was sectioned. What if they did become friends, and then maybe lost touch. What if…” She screwed up her face even harder. “What if there was an earlier will? What if Melissa had originally left her money to Megan? What if Melissa thought that Megan was dangerous? By coincidence or by plot, Megan marries her ex. Damn, we should have asked her lawyer if she had made a previous will. Anyway, somehow Megan finds out that Melissa has changed her will and blames James’s influence and attacks him. Then she goes on to murder Melissa.”
Bill put his head in his hands. “Agatha, Agatha. A lot of police work and time went in checking out the Sheppards’ alibi. Their car was in the hotel garage all night.”
“Oh. Wait a bit. What sort of car?”
“A Range Rover.”
