by M C Beaton
"No, I don't. I think I'm going to have to pay her what she wants. I know it's silly and I know I could get somewhere else quite close, but I want my own place. Did you notice the garden when we were going in to her place? Weeds everywhere. Why do people live in the countryside if they don't like living things?" demanded Agatha piously. She wrinkled her nose at her warm gin and tipped it into a rubber plant which was standing on a shelf near her table.
"I gather you don't want to try another of those?"
"No, thank you. And I don't like warm beer either'. 'Then we may as well face a foggy journey home." They went outside. The fog had lifted and a fresh wind was blowing. A little moon raced through the clouds above their heads. A shower of beech-nuts fell on Agatha's head. "More nuts!"
"They're poisonous," said James. "Poisonous to sheep and cattle. Don't seem to affect the squirrels."
When they reached home, James said wearily, "I feel we are going round and round and not getting anywhere. The police have all the resources - to check histories, alibis, and bank accounts. Do you think it is really worth going to London tomorrow to see this secretary?"
"Of course." Agatha was now frightened that if they stopped their investigations, James would take off for foreign parts again. "You'll feel better about it all in the morning."
Helen Warwick was not at the Houses of Parliament but at her flat in a Victorian block in the Gloucester Road in Kensington. When she answered the door, Agatha could not believe at first that this lady could have been Sir Desmond's mistress. She was plump and placid, with light grey eyes and brown hair worn in an old-fashioned French pleat. She was wearing a tailored silk blouse and tweed skirt, sensible brogues, and no make-up. James judged her to be in her forties.
James explained, correctly this time, who they were and why they had come. "You'd better come in," she said.
The flat was large, rather dark, but very comfortable, with a fire burning brightly in the living-room. There was a large bowl of autumn leaves and chrysanthemums on a polished table by the window. The sofa and chairs had feather cushions. A good Victorian English landscape hung over the fireplace. It looked as if Miss Warwick had money and had probably always been well-off.
"I was shocked when I learned of Desmond's death," said Helen. "We were great friends. He was always so kind and courteous. I'm sorry his wife had to find out in such a dreadful way. What's all this about blackmail?"
So they told her all about Jimmy Raisin and Mrs. Gore-Appleton. "I remember them," said Helen. "No, they didn't try to blackmail me. I'm the sort that would have gone straight to the police and they probably knew that. I didn't like them one bit. How they found out my real identity I do not know."
"They probably looked in your handbag," said Agatha.
"And saw the different name on my credit cards? I suppose so. Horrible people. In fact, now that I come to think of it, I can almost pin-point the day they found out."
"Tell us about them," said Agatha eagerly. "Everyone else we've asked seems vague, even someone who slept with Jimmy."
"Let me see...would you both like coffee?"
"No, thank you," said James, anxious to hear what she had to say and frightened that if she went into the kitchen, she might change her mind about talking to them.
"Desmond and I joked about health farms at first. We weren't really interested in our health. We thought it might be an amusing place to get together. His wife might have found a visit to a hotel suspicious but Desmond had told her he was worried about his blood pressure. Jimmy Raisin was a wreck. We arrived on the same day. He was still stinking of booze, but after only a couple of days, he looked like a changed man. He was always oiling around us, my-ladying me to death and claiming to know all sorts of celebrities. He was the sort of man who calls celebs by their first name. He kept talking about his good friend, Tony, who had won an Oscar, and it turned out to be Anthony Hopkins. I don't suppose he even knew him. Mrs. Gore-Appleton was not much better. She was - what is it the Americans say? - in my face. She had an abrasive manner overlaid with syrup. You know, she paid me effusive compliments while all the time her sharp eyes watched me to see if I was swallowing any of it. Desmond finally told them we wanted some time to ourselves. The day after that - that would be about five days after we arrived - they began to throw us very knowing looks and then pass our table and give contemptuous laughs. I thought it was because Desmond had snubbed them. But they must have found out I wasn't Lady Derrington. What else can I tell you? I thought Jimmy Raisin was a wide boy, what they used to call a spiv. There was something seedy about him. I gathered from the newspapers that you had not seen him in a very long time, Mrs. Raisin. The Gore-Appleton woman was blonde and muscular, tried to be very pukka, but there was something all wrong about her. I tell you what. Let me get us all some coffee and I'll think some more."
Agatha and James waited until she returned with a tray. There was not only coffee but home-made toasted tea-cakes. "Did you really make these yourself?" James took another appreciative bite. "These are excellent and the coffee is divine." He stretched out his long legs. "It's very comfortable here."
Helen gave him a slow smile. "Come when you're in town and have a free hour to spare."
Agatha stiffened. This wretched woman suddenly seemed like more competition than any blonde sylph. She was suddenly anxious to get James away.
But Helen was talking again. "You say he slept with some woman?" She laughed. "I love that euphemism, "slept with." One does anything but." She gave a warm creamy laugh and Agatha's bearlike eyes fastened on her with barely concealed hate.
"That would be a Mrs. Comfort, am I right?"
"How did you know?" said James.
"Oh, he was making up to her and the Gore-Appleton woman was egging him on. I heard him say, "I'll get her tonight," and Mrs. Gore-Appleton laughed and said, "Have fun," and the next morning, well, body language and all that, you know what I mean, don't you, James?"
"Oh, absolutely."
I'll kill this bitch, thought Agatha.
"And that poor spinster lady, she was murdered," said Helen with an artistic shudder. "More coffee, James?"
Her tailored silk blouse had a deep V and she leaned forward, deliberately, Agatha thought, to reach for the coffeepot at such an angle that James could see two excellent breasts encased in a frilly brassiere.
James had another full cup of coffee and was helping himself to another tea-cake. Agatha groaned inwardly.
Helen suddenly looked at her. "I remember now. You and Mr. Lacey here were to be married but Jimmy turned up at your wedding." She laughed again. "That must have been quite a scene. You'll be able to marry now."
"Yes," said Agatha.
"We haven't made any plans," said James.
There was an awkward silence. "We should go," said Agatha harshly. "Could you just wait until I finish my coffee, dear?"
Agatha, who had half-risen, sat down again. "Lacey, Lacey," Helen was saying. "Are you any relative of Major-General Robert Lacey?"
"My father. He died some time ago'. 'Oh, then you must know..." And what followed was the sort of conversation Agatha dreaded, James and Helen animatedly talking about people she did not know.
At last, when Agatha felt she could not stand another moment without screaming, James got to his feet with obvious reluctance.
They took their leave, Agatha first, muttering a grumpy thanks, James after her, stopping to kiss Helen on the cheek and promising to see her again, giving her his card and taking one of hers.
Agatha fumed the whole way back to Carsely. She complained bitterly about harpies who sponged off men instead of going out to work. James tried to point out that as a secretary to a Member of Parliament, Helen did go out to work, but that only seemed to make Agatha worse. He left her at the cottage, saying he had to see someone, whereupon Agatha tortured herself with mad jealousy, imagining him driving back to London to spend the night with Helen. She finally went to bed and tried to read, listening all the while for the sound
of his key in the door. At last, just after midnight, she heard him return, heard him come upstairs and go into the bathroom, heard him wash, heard him go to his own room without coming in to say good night to her, although he could surely see the light shining under her door.
She raised her head and banged her pillow with her fist, put out the light, and tried to compose herself for sleep. But sleep would not come as she tossed and turned, tormenting j herself with pictures of a world out there full of women all too j ready to snatch James away from her.
And then she stiffened. She heard a furtive noise from somewhere downstairs and then the clack of the letter-box, then a sound like water being poured. She pulled on her dressing-gown and ran down the stairs. She opened the door to the hall as a gloved hand threw a lighted match through the letter-box. In that instant Agatha leaped back into the living-room and screamed, "James!" just as a sheet of flame reached i out for her.
He came hurtling down the stairs. "We're on fire," j shouted Agatha. She made to open the door again but he; pulled her back.
"Go up to the bathroom and pour buckets of water on i the floor. It's over the hall. We've got to stop the fire getting to the thatch!"
James ran to the kitchen as Agatha scampered up the stairs. Swearing, he filled a bucket of water and running back with it, hurled the contents at the living-room door, which was already beginning to blister and crackle.
Upstairs, Agatha, sobbing with fright, poured water on the bathroom floor. There were shouts and yells from outside. Agatha clearly heard the voice of the landlord, John Fletcher, calling, "Keep throwing that earth. We daren't wait for the fire brigade. Oh, Mrs. Hardy. More earth. Let's be having it! That there's a petrol fire. I can smell it."
Then, just as James shouted up, "It's all right now, Agatha," she heard the sirens of police cars and the fire engine in the distance. She went slowly down the stairs and sat on the bottom steps with her head in her hands.
The living-room door now stood open to reveal the black and smouldering wreck of the little hall, piled high with a mound of earth.
"Who would do a thing like this?" demanded James. "Someone meant to roast us alive."
"Probably Helen Warwick," said Agatha, and burst into tears.
SEVEN
SUDDENLY the house seemed to be full of people.
Fred Griggs, the policeman; Mrs. Bloxby, with a sweater and trousers pulled on over her pyjamas; John Fletcher, the publican; Mrs. Hardy; and various other villagers.
"You've got Mrs. Hardy here to thank for quick action," said Fred. "She phoned the fire brigade and then ran with buckets of earth to put on the fire. Water don't do much to stop a petrol fire."
"Are you all right, Mrs. Raisin?" Mrs. Hardy's normally bad-tempered face registered concern.
"Bit shaken," said Agatha.
"Who could have done such a thing?"
Agatha shuddered and wrapped her arms closely about herself. "I just don't know."
By the time the police arrived and then Bill Wong, and two other detectives Agatha did not know, the Carsely Ladies' Society had commandeered the kitchen and were making tea for all. Agatha was being fussed over and handed home-made cakes. John Fletcher had brought a case of beer along from the pub and was serving out drinks to the men. James was looking around the crowded cottage in a bemused way and wondering whether to put on some music and make a party of it.
But the police cleared everyone out after having heard a report from the fire chief, and the detectives settled down to interview Agatha and James.
"You've been putting that stick of yours in muddy waters and stirring things up," Bill accused Agatha. "Who did you go to see today?" He glanced at the clock. "Or rather, yesterday."
James flashed Agatha a warning glance, but Agatha said, "Helen Warwick."
"What! That secretary who was having an affair with Sir Desmond Derrington? I told you pair not to interfere!"
James said wearily, "I know you did. But until this murder, or murders, is cleared up, Agatha and I feel we will always be suspects."
"I'll talk to you about that later. Now, who else did you see?"
"No one else yesterday."
"The day before?"
James hesitated. Then he shrugged and said, "Mrs. Comfort had gone off to Spain with her lover, a Basil Morton who lives in Mircester. We went to see what we could find out about him. He's married and his wife hadn't a clue what he was up to, so we left. Then we went to see Mrs. Comfort's ex-husband in Ashton-Le-Walls. He threatened to set the dog on us. End of story."
"And how did you find out about Mr. Comfort? His address? Come to think of it, how did you get the addresses of those other people who were at the health farm?"
Agatha said, "Roy Silver employed a detective to find out about Jimmy. She dug up the addresses for us."
"Name?"
"Can't remember," mumbled Agatha.
"We'll ask Silver."
Agatha looked helplessly at James.
"There's no need to lie, Agatha," said James. "We had a short stay at the health farm, Bill, and while we were there, I had a chance to look at the records. Do you think the rest of the questioning could be left until we've had some sleep? We're both rather shaky."
"All right. But I expect you both at police headquarters as soon as you can manage it."
As Bill Wong drove off with the others, his first thought was, I've a lot to tell Maddie - followed hard by another thought, I'm damned if I will. It was strange they couldn't find the Gore-Appleton woman. And yet there was something nagging at the back of his mind, something someone had said, something very obvious he hadn't thought of doing.
The village carpenter effected temporary repairs, putting up chipboard and a makeshift door the next day while James phoned the insurance company. Mrs. Hardy phoned Agatha and asked if she would 'step next door' for a chat. "I'll see what she wants, James," said Agatha, "and then we'd better get off to Mircester."
Agatha went reluctantly next door. She had taken such a dislike to Mrs. Hardy, and yet the woman had done everything she could to help put out the fire. Not only that, she had saved their lives, thought Agatha. That was a wild exaggeration, when they could both have escaped out of the back door.
But it was a changed Mrs. Hardy who answered the door to her. "Come in, you poor thing," she said. "What a nightmare!"
"Thank you for all your efforts on our behalf." Agatha followed her into the kitchen.
"Coffee?"
"Yes, please."
Mrs. Hardy poured two cups of coffee. They both sat down at the kitchen table.
"I'll come straight to the point." Mrs. Hardy twisted her coffee-cup nervously in her ringed hands. "I decided to settle in the country for peace and quiet. I was finding it all too quiet, but what happened to you last night was frightening, not my idea of excitement. There's a maniac on the loose and I want out of here. I am prepared to take your offer of one hundred and ten thousand pounds."
Agatha had a sudden impulse to say she would make it one hundred and thirty, the sum she had originally offered, but bit it back in time.
"When do you want to settle at the lawyers'?"
"Today, if possible," said Mrs. Hardy.
"Let me see, we're just about to go into Mircester to make our statements. We could go on from there to Cheltenham. What about four o'clock?"
"I'll fix it."
"Tell me," said Agatha curiously, "what is it about Carsely that you don't like, apart from murder and mayhem?"
She gave a little sigh. "I've been very lonely since my husband died. I thought a small village would be a friendly place."
"But it is!" protested Agatha. "Everyone's prepared to be friendly if you just give them a chance."
"But it means going to church and talking to the yokels in the pub and joining some dreadful ladies' society."
"I find them delightful."
"Well, I don't. I like cities. I'll rent in London. I'll put my stuff in storage and take a service flat for a few weeks and l
ook around."
But that remark of Mrs. Hardy's about not being able to make friends had gone straight to Agatha's heart as she remembered her own lonely days before coming to Carsely.
She said, "Why don't you stay? We could be friends."
"That's very kind of you." Mrs. Hardy gave a wry smile. "Don't you want your cottage back?"
"Well, I do, but..."
"Then you shall have it. I'll see you at the lawyers' this afternoon."
"And that was that," said Agatha to James a few minutes later. "So I'll soon be home again. She said as I was leaving that provided all the papers were signed, I can move in in a fortnight."
James felt slightly irritated. A moment before it had seemed that all he wanted out of life was to have his cottage to himself, without Agatha Raisin dribbling cigarette ash over everything. He decided that she ought to look less delighted at the prospect of leaving his home.
"Well, if you're ready," he said, "let's get to police headquarters."
Leaves fluttered down in front of them as they drove off, autumn leaves, dancing and whirling, blown down by a great gusty wind from a sky full of tumbling black, ragged clouds.
The whole countryside was in motion. Showers of nuts pattered on the roof of the car. A woman getting out of a car at the Quarry Garage clutched at her skirts to hold them down. An old newspaper spiralled up and then performed a tumbling hectic dance through the furrows of a brown ploughed field. And somewhere, thought Agatha, crawling around out there is a murderer.
"It must be something to do with that Helen Warwick," she said.
"Don't be ridiculous," snapped James. "Do you mean! she travelled down from London to pour petrol through our 1 letter-box? Why?"
"Because I swear she knows something."
"Oh, really. Then I had better go back and see her."
"Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Very much. I found her a charming woman."
"Men are so blind. She was sly and devious. And mercenary."
"In your jealous opinion, Agatha."
