by M C Beaton
“Please sit down,” said Agatha, mentally preparing to sock him with a large fee and get rid of him. “How may I be of help?”
“This is very embarrassing.” Mr. Smedley glared round the small office. “Oh, very well. I think Mabel is seeing another man.”
“Mabel being your wife?” prompted Agatha.
“Yes.”
“What makes you think she might be having an affair?”
“Oh, little things. I came home early one day and I heard her singing.”
“Why is that so odd?”
“She never sings when I’m around.”
Can’t blame her for that, thought Agatha sourly.
“Anything else?”
“Last week she bought a new dress without consulting me.”
“Women do that,” said Agatha patiently. “I mean, why would she need your permission to buy a new dress?”
“I choose all her clothes. I’m an important man and I like to see my wife dressed accordingly.”
“Anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough? I tell you, if she’s seeing someone I want evidence for a divorce.”
In that moment Agatha could have strangled both Phil and Mrs. Bloxby. She had been inveigled into hiring a geriatric all on the promise of this case and now it seemed that Smedley was nothing more than a jealous bully.
So in order to get rid of him, she named a very heavy fee and expenses. He took out his chequebook. “I’ll give you a thousand pounds down and you can bill me for the expenses and for the rest if you are successful.”
Agatha blinked rapidly, thought of her overheads, and accepted the cheque.
When Robert Smedley had left, Agatha said crossly to Phil, “This is all a load of rubbish, but we may as well make the moves. You and I will go over to Ancombe and stake out the house. Have you got your camera?”
“Got a car full of them,” said Phil cheerfully
“Okay, let’s go.”
Ancombe was only a few miles from Carsely. They quickly found Smedley’s home. It was on the outskirts of the village in a heavily wooded area, perched on a rise. It had originally been a small eighteenth-century cottage built of the local mellow golden stone, but a large extension had been added to the back. Phil parked his car a little way away off the road in the shelter of a stand of trees. He took out a camera with a long telescopic lens.
“I’m slipping,” mourned Agatha. “I should have asked him for a photograph of her.”
Phil peered down the road. “There’s a car just coming out of the driveway. Here, you take the wheel. We’ll follow.”
Agatha swung the wheel and followed at a discreet distance while Phil photographed the car and the number plate.
“She’s heading for Moreton,” said Agatha. “Probably going to buy another dress or something evil like that.”
“She’s turning into the station,” said Phil. “Maybe going to meet someone.”
“Or take the train,” said Agatha.
A small, dowdy-looking woman got out of the car. “I hope that’s her and not the cleaner,” said Agatha. “If he chose that dress for her, he should be shot.”
Who they hoped was Mabel Smedley was wearing a cotton shirtwaister in an eye-watering print. The hem practically reached her ankles and she was wearing patent leather shoes with low heels. She had dusty, sandy hair pulled back in a bun. She was obviously much younger than her husband. Smedley, Agatha guessed, looked around late forties. If this was Mrs. Smedley, she looked in her early thirties. Her face, devoid of make-up, was unlined and with no outstanding features. Small tired eyes, regular mouth, small chin.
She turned into the ticket office. As usual, there was a queue, so they were able to stand a few people behind her. They heard her order a day return to Oxford.
When it came their turn, they asked for day returns as well and then went over the bridge to the platform.
Phil had unscrewed the telescopic lens and snapped several discreet shots of Mrs. Smedley waiting for the train.
The train was ten minutes late in that usual irritating way of trains—like some boss keeping you waiting ten minutes outside his door to stress what a busy and important man he was.
She got out at Oxford and began to walk. They followed. Agatha took out her mobile phone and called Mrs. Bloxby. “Do you know what Mrs. Smedley looks like?”
“Yes, you must have seen her before, Mrs. Raisin, but maybe you didn’t notice her. She does a lot of work for the Ancombe Ladies’ Society. She’s small and thin with sandy hair. I think she’s about fourteen years younger than her husband. Very quiet. What… ?”
“Tell you later,” said Agatha and rang off. “That’s her, all right,” she said to Phil. “Wonder where she’s going?”
They followed her along Worcester Street and then along Walton Street. At last, Mrs. Smedley stopped outside the Phoenix Cinema and went in.
“Don’t get too caught up in the film,” hissed Agatha.
They bought tickets. The cinema was nearly empty. They took seats three rows behind her. The film was a Russian one called The Steppes of Freedom. It was beautifully photographed, but to Agatha’s jaundiced eyes, nothing seemed to happen apart from the heroine either bursting into tears or staring out across the steppes. Obviously Mrs. Smedley was as bored as Agatha because, before the end, she got up. They gave her a few minutes before following. Back along Walton Street and so down to the station.
Back on the train to Moreton and from there they followed her home.
“Maybe she hoped to meet someone,” said Phil, “and he didn’t turn up. I mean, it seems odd to go all that way to sit through a dreary film.”
“You got photos of her going into the cinema?”
“Of course.”
“I know,” said Agatha. “Let’s go and see Mrs. Bloxby. She seems to know all about Mrs. Smedley.”
They drove to the vicarage. Alf Bloxby, the vicar, answered the door and his face hardened into displeasure when he saw Agatha.
“If you’ve come to see my wife, she’s busy,” he said.
Mrs. Bloxby appeared behind him. “What are you talking about, Alf? Do come in, Mrs. Raisin. And Mr. Witherspoon, too.”
The vicar muttered something like pah under his breath and strode off to his study.
“Let’s go into the garden,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Such a fine day. It won’t last, of course. As soon as Wimbledon comes around, then the rain comes down again.”
They sat at a table in the garden. “I see you’ve employed Mr. Witherspoon,” said Mrs. Bloxby brightly.
“For the moment,” retorted Agatha. “He’s on trial. The case we’re on involves Mrs. Mabel Smedley. Her husband thinks she’s having an affair.”
“That doesn’t seem very likely. I mean, a small place like Ancombe. Such news would soon get out.”
“What’s she like?”
“Hard to tell. Have you forgotten, Mrs. Raisin? The Ancombe Ladies’ Society is having a sale of work the day after tomorrow and some of us are going over to help. You could come along and see for yourself. Mrs. Smedley works very hard for good causes, but she is quiet and self-effacing. They’ve only been married for two years.”
“Any children?”
“No, and none by Mr. Smedley’s first marriage either.”
“What happened to the first Mrs. Smedley?”
“Poor thing. She was subject to bouts of depression. She committed suicide.”
“I’m not surprised. Married to a creature like that.” Agatha described him in trenchant terms, ending up with that description of his mouth.
“Mrs. Raisin! Really.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Agatha.
Phil stifled a laugh by pretending he had a sneezing fit.
“I think Mr. Smedley is just unnaturally jealous,” said Mrs. Bloxby.
“Oh dear,” sighed Agatha. “It all seems such a waste of time. We’ll leave it for today, Phil, and you can drive me back to the office so I can collect my car. I’ll see you in t
he office tomorrow. I’ve a few things to work on.”
Just as Agatha was setting down to a dinner of microwaved chips and microwaved lasagne that evening, the telephone rang. “Don’t dare touch my food,” she warned her cats, Hodge and Boswell.
She answered the phone and heard the slightly camp voice of her former assistant, Roy Silver.
“I haven’t heard from you in ages,” he said. “No more killings down there?”
“No, nothing. Just a divorce case and I hate divorce cases.”
“Stands to reason, sweetie. You being such a reluctantly divorced woman yourself.”
“That is not the reason! I just find them distasteful.”
“Divorce cases are surely the bread and butter of any detective agency. Why I’m phoning is to ask you if I can come down for the weekend.”
“Next weekend? All right. Let me know which train you’ll be on and I’ll meet you at Moreton.”
When Agatha rang off, she felt cheerful at the thought of having company. She had endured a brief unhappy marriage to James Lacey. They hadn’t even lived in the same house. But after it was over, she found herself getting lonely when she wasn’t working full out.
Then Agatha realized she hadn’t tackled Mrs. Bloxby over manipulating her into employing Phil. She rang up the vicar’s wife.
“Mrs. Bloxby,” began Agatha, “I feel you forced me into employing Phil.”
“Mr. Witherspoon. I suppose I did push you in that direction.”
“Why? You’re not a pushy woman.”
Mrs. Bloxby sighed. “I happened to learn that he has only a small pension. He made some bad investments with his capital. He is desperately in need of money and was ready to sell off some of his precious cameras. You needed a photographer, he needed work. I couldn’t help myself.”
“Oh, well,” muttered Agatha, somewhat mollified. “We’ll see how he works out.”
“Going to Ancombe?”
“Of course. I forgot to ask you what time it begins.”
“Two in the afternoon.”
“I’ll be there.”
Agatha returned to the kitchen to find her cats up on the table, tucking in to her dinner. “You little bastards,” she howled. She opened the kitchen door and shooed them both out into the garden. She scraped her dinner into the rubbish bin and suddenly burst into tears.
She finally mopped her eyes on a dishcloth and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand. Agatha was in her early fifties, but recently had been assailed with a fear of getting old and living alone. On damp days, she had a stabbing pain in her hip but stoically ignored it. She couldn’t possibly have arthritis. She was too young!
“Pull yourself together,” she said aloud. Was this the menopause at last? She had been secretly proud of the fact that she had not yet reached that borderline.
The phone rang again. Agatha wearily went to answer it.
“Charles, here.”
Agatha’s friend, Sir Charles Fraith.
“Oh, hullo, Charles. Where have you been lately?” Agatha gave a gulping sob.
“Have you been crying, Aggie?”
“Don’t call me Aggie. Bit of an allergy, that’s all.”
“Have you eaten?”
“I was about to but the cats got to it.”
“I’ll be right over. I was to entertain some luscious girl to a picnic and she never showed. I’ll bring it right over and we’ll have a picnic in your garden.”
“Oh, thanks, Charles.”
“So dry your eyes.”
“I haven’t been crying!” But Charles had rung off.
He turned up half an hour later, which had given Agatha time to bathe her face in cold water and put on fresh make-up.
She was glad to see Charles, even though she occasionally found him irritating. He had fair hair and neat features and was as self-contained and independent as a cat.
He carried a large hamper into the garden and began to set things out on the garden table.
“Duck breasts in aspic, asparagus, champagne ... you really must have thought a lot of this girl.”
“She is very ornamental,” said Charles. “Unfortunately for me, she knows it.”
They ate companionably while Agatha told him about the Smedley case.
“Might go with you,” said Charles. “Mind if I stay the night?”
“No, you know where the spare room is.”
“I’ve got my bag in the car. I’ll get it later.”
The sun slowly set behind the trees at the bottom of the garden. Agatha thought uneasily about her burst of tears. It all seemed like madness now.
TWO
CHARLES was still in bed the following morning when Agatha set out for the office fortified with a breakfast of two cigarettes and a cup of black coffee.
“What have we got today?” she asked Mrs. Freedman.
“Still got that missing-teenager case, one missing dog and one missing cat.”
“Peanuts,” said Agatha gloomily. “I’ve got the morning free, so I may as well get back out there looking for them. We’ll leave Mabel Smedley for now.”
“I’ll come with you,” volunteered Phil.
“Oh, all right,” said Agatha. “We’ll start with the teenager, Jessica Bradley.”
“That’s been in all the papers,” said Phil. “Left the Happy Night Club at one in the morning and just disappeared. The police haven’t been able to find a trace of her.”
“I’ve interviewed the people who run the club,” said Agatha, “and her friends. She left alone. Doesn’t seem to have a boyfriend. I don’t know what we can find out that the police can’t.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Phil, “we could walk from the club to her home, just to get a feel of the area.”
“I’ve done that,” snapped Agatha. “The police have even had a look-alike on television doing that.”
“Sometimes people try so hard, they’re not really looking,” said Phil. “Wouldn’t hurt just to take the walk again.”
“Oh, well,” sighed Agatha. “It’s better than sitting here. Give me her photo and those cat and dog photos, Mrs. Freedman. Who knows? We might get lucky and find one of them in the street.”
They made their way to the Happy Night Club. It was in a dingy backstreet.
“It’s quite a walk,” said Agatha.
“As far as I remember,” said Phil, “she lives in Old Brewery Road out by the bypass.”
“Right. I don’t know what you hope to achieve by this walk, but I’m prepared to try anything.”
The day was becoming quite hot. Agatha had put on a pair of high-heeled sandals that morning and her feet were beginning to ache. The houses began to thin out as they approached the bypass. “We take the bridge over the bypass,” said Agatha.
As they reached the centre of the bridge, Phil said, “Stop!”
“What?”
“Just want to look. How long’s she been missing?”
“Three days.”
“How old is she?”
“Sixteen.”
Phil was carrying his camera bag. He knelt down and opened it and took out a camera and a telescopic lens.
“Going to photograph the bypass?”
“Sometimes I can see things with this that other people miss.”
Normally Agatha would have protested, but it was a relief to stop walking and ease her feet.
“It’s a high climb up to the bridge,” said Phil after what seemed like an age, “and there wouldn’t be much traffic on the bypass at that time of night. Now, if I were Jessica, I wouldn’t bother climbing the bridge, I’d nip across the dual carriageway. So say she’s standing over there waiting to cross and a car pulls up.”
“I don’t think any teenager is going to get into a strange car in the middle of the night.”
“True. But what if it were someone she knew?”
“So, Sherlock, we’re worse off than ever. She gets in the car, is driven off and could be anywhere in England.”
“Tell me abou
t her parents.”
“Then let’s get back off this bridge. I’m frying up here. There’s a nice bit of shade in the grass on the other side.”
They walked over and climbed up a grassy bank. “Father, Frank Bradley, works in an ice cream factory. Forties. Cut up about his daughter. Wife about the same age. Tired-looking, cries the whole time.”
“What were they about, letting Jessica stay out so late? I mean, she’s only sixteen.”
“They had told her to be home by eleven. When she didn’t show, the father went out looking for her.”
“What if the father did find her? What if she got in the car and he lost his temper and she cheeked him and he thumped her too hard? Have the police looked closely at the family?”
“Yes. First thing they thought of.”
“Okay.” Phil’s eyes looked oddly young in his wrinkled face. “But they wouldn’t make any particular push. Grieving parents and all that.”
“I thought of the father right off as well as the police,” said Agatha. “But I’d swear to God the man is genuine.”
“What about uncles? Neighbours?”
“I don’t know,” said Agatha crossly.
“You know, we could go back and get the car and pretend that she was picked up and drive along the dual carriageway and see if there’s anywhere to dump a body. The police can’t search everywhere.”
“I’m the detective, not you,” snapped Agatha. Phil looked at her mournfully.
“It’s the heat,” said Agatha by way of apology. “Look, my feet hurt. Be an angel and get the car and I’ll wait here.”
“Righto,” said Phil cheerfully. “Watch my cameras and I’ll be back in a tick.”
He strode off. I think he’s fitter than me, thought Agatha. Her hip gave a nasty little twinge and she rubbed it fiercely.
Phil was soon back. Agatha crossed back over the bridge and got into his car. “No air conditioning,” she moaned.
“If you open the window you’ll get a nice breeze,” said Phil.
Agatha opened the window and a hot dry wind sent her hair whipping about her face. She shut it partly. “How far are we going?” Phil was cruising along slowly, looking carefully to left and right.
