by M C Beaton
"Come on, Agatha," ordered Harriet.
"Who are they? That couple?"
"Oh, that's our squire, self-appointed, made his money out of bathroom showers, and his wife, Lucy. The Trumpington Jameses. Funny, isn't it," said Harriet, her voice carrying across the churchyard. "Not so long ago a double-barrelled name denoted a lady or gentleman. Now it means it's some lowermiddle-class parvenu."
"Aren't you being a bit snobby?" asked Agatha.
"No," said Harriet. "They're quite awful, as you'll find out."
"How will I find out?"
"They'll think it their squire-archical duty to welcome the newcomer. You'll see."
"Where are we going?"
"My place."
Harriet's place was on the far side of the green, a square, early Victorian house.
Leading the way into a large, if gloomy, sitting-room, Harriet switched on the lamps and said, "Anyone for a drink first?" And before a grateful Agatha could ask for a gin and tonic, Harriet said, "I know, we'll have some of Carne's elderberry wine."
Agatha looked about her. The room had long windows and a high ceiling but was crowded with heavy pieces of furniture. The walls were painted a dull green and hung with dingy paintings of horses and dead game.
Amy was getting blankets and boxes of cloth and sewing implements out of a large chest in the corner.
"I think you should share a quilt with Carrie," said Amy. "You work on the one end and she'll work on the other. If you sit side by side, you can spread the blanket out between you."
Harriet returned with a tray of glasses full of elderberry wine. Agatha sipped hers cautiously. It was very sweet and tasted slightly medicinal.
"Are we all widows here?" asked Agatha, looking around. "No husbands?"
"My husband's in the pub with Amy's and Polly's," said Harriet. "Carrie's divorced."
"I thought the pub was closed on Sundays. I went round at lunch-time and it was closed."
"Opens Sunday evenings." Harriet drained her glass and put it back on the tray. "We'd best get started."
It should be simple, thought Agatha, as Carrie handed her a little pile of squares of cloth. Just stitch them on.
"Not like that," said Carrie, as Agatha stabbed a needle into the edge of one. "You hem it first and then stitch it on and unpick the hem." Agatha scowled horribly and proceeded to try to hem a slippery little square of silk. Just as soon as it got a stitch in it, the silk frayed at the edges. She surreptitiously dropped it on the floor and picked out a piece of coloured wool. She glanced sideways at Carrie, who was placing neat little, almost invisible, stitches, rapidly in squares of material.
She decided to start up a conversation to try to distract the others from her amateur sewing. "Mrs. Wilden at the pub treated me to an excellent meal last night. She's quite stunningly beautiful."
"Pity she's got the morals of a tom-cat," snapped Polly, biting a thread with strong yellow teeth.
"Oh, really?" said Agatha, looking around curiously at the set faces. "I found her rather sweet."
"Good thing you're not married." Amy, sounding almost tearful.
"When did your husband die, Agatha?" asked Carrie.
"A while back," said Agatha. "I don't want to talk about it." She did not want to tell them her husband had been murdered right after he had surfaced from the past to stop her marrying James Lacey. "I'm still wondering about those lights," she went on. She noticed with surprise that because of the distraction of talking she had actually managed to hem a square of cloth.
"Have you seen them again?" asked Harriet.
"No."
"Well, there you are. You were probably tired after the long drive and thought you saw them."
Agatha gave up on the subject of the lights. She was sure these women probably gossiped easily among themselves. She was the outsider, not yet accepted, and that was putting the brakes on any conversation.
She felt she was being let out of school when Harriet said after an hour, "Well, that's it for tonight."
As Agatha was leaving, she stopped to admire an arrangement of autumn leaves in a vase in the hall. Harriet lifted out the bunch of leaves and thrust it at Agatha. "Take it," she said. "I dip the leaves in glycerine so they should last you the winter."
Agatha walked homewards bearing the leaves. She remembered there was a large stone jar on the floor by the fireplace in the sitting-room. She let herself into the cottage, glad that she had brought her cats for company as Hodge and Boswell undulated about her ankles.
She walked through to the kitchen and put the bunch of leaves on the kitchen counter. She looked out the window and the dancing lights were there again.
Agatha unlocked the door and walked down the garden. The lights had disappeared.
Muttering to herself, she walked back to the house. Something fimny was going on. She had not imagined those lights and there was nothing wrong with her eyesight.
She walked through to the sitting-room to get that vase. It was no longer there. Agatha began to wonder if she had imagined it. She took the inventory out of the kitchen drawer. Yes, there it was under "Contents of Sitting-Room"--one pottery vase.
Agatha suddenly felt threatened. She checked the doors were locked and went up to bed. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she had not had any dinner, but the thought of going downstairs again frightened her. She bathed and undressed and crawled under the duvet and pulled it over her head to shut out the terrors of the night.
TWO
ANOTHER sunny morning and Agatha, ashamed of her night-time fears, decided to drive into Norwich, buy a microwave, have breakfast, and then return to tackle the estate agent over the lack of central heating.
Being in Norwich brightened up the feelings of city-bred Agatha immensely. She bought a microwave and a further supply of microwavable meals in Marks & Spencer, had a large cholesterol-filled breakfast, bought a cheap glass vase, and returned to Fryfam in a confident frame of mind.
After she had unpacked her shopping and fed her cats, she walked to the estate agent's.
She pushed open the door of Bryman's and walked in. To her intense irritation, she saw the droopy figure of Amy Worth sitting behind a computer screen. "Why didn't you tell me you worked here?" complained Agatha.
"There didn't seem much point," said Amy defensively. "I'm just the typist. I don't have anything to do with the renting of the houses."
"So who do I speak to?"
"Mr. Bryman. I'll get him."
Secretive about nothing at all, fumed Agatha. Amy reemerged and held open the door to an inner office. "Mr. Bryman will see you now."
Agatha walked past her. A youngish man with a sallow face, thick lips and wet eyes stood up and extended his hand. "Welcome, Mrs. Raisin."
Agatha shook his hand, which was clammy. What a damp young man, she thought. He was in shirt-sleeves and there were patches of sweat under his armpits. There was also an unpleasant goaty smell emanating from him. Amy, Agatha had noticed, was wearing the same clothes she had worn the day before. Perhaps no one in Fryfam bothered about baths.
Agatha sat down. "You should have warned me there was no central heating," she began.
"But the logs are free," he protested. "Stacks of logs."
"I do not want to have to set and clean all those fireplaces when the weather turns cold."
"We'll let you have a couple of Calor gas heaters like the one in the kitchen. I'll bring them round today."
"Don't you have anywhere else?"
"Not to rent. For sale only. Quite a lot of the houses in Fryfam are second homes. People leave them empty in the winter. Only come down for the summer months. There's always a demand for second homes. You'll find there's few of us here in the winter."
"Okay, I'll take the heaters. Now, there's something else."
He raised his eyebrows in query.
"I checked the inventory yesterday. There was definitely a stone vase in the sitting-room. Well, it's disappeared. I saw these lights at the end of the gar
den and went to investigate and when I came back the vase had gone."
"Oh, I think we can overlook that, Mrs. Raisin. It's just an old vase."
"I am not going to overlook it," said Agatha stubbornly. "Is there a policeman here? There must be. I phoned the police to get your name."
"There's PC Framp, but I wouldn't bother-"
"I will bother. Where is he? I didn't see a police station."
"It's out a bit on the road to the manor house."
"Which is where?"
"North of the village green. The road that goes out of the village the opposite way to the one you arrived on."
"Right. When will you be arriving with the heaters?"
"I've got a spare key. I'll leave them in the hall if you aren't in."
"Don't upset my cats."
"I didn't know you had pets, Mrs. Raisin. You didn't say anything about cats."
Agatha rose to her feet and looked at him truculently. "And you didn't say anything about not having them. No cats, no rental."
She turned and marched out. She ignored Amy. She was fed up with the whole bunch of them. And she had only just arrived!
She decided to drive. She returned home to get in her car and saw a square envelope lying inside the door. She opened it up. There was a note on stiff parchment. "We would like to welcome you to the village. Please come for tea this afternoon at four o'clock. Lucy Trumpington-James."
Summoned to the manor house, thought Agatha. Well, God knows, I've got nothing better to do.
She phoned Mrs. Bloxby in Carsely. "Haven't heard from James," said the vicar's wife promptly. "I wasn't phoning about that," lied Agatha. "Just wondered how everyone was getting on."
"Same as ever." said Mrs. Bloxby cheerfully. "What's that place in Norfolk like?"
"Weird," said Agatha. "It's a small village and I gather a large proportion of the population only use their houses in summer, which is enough to turn anyone Communist when you think of the housing shortage."
"Well, your house is going to be empty for the winter. Would you like me to find a homeless family?"
"No, don't," said Agatha, repressing a shudder.
"I thought not." Was the saintly Mrs. Bloxby being catty? Perish the thought.
"It's about these strange lights." Agatha told her all about them and about the locals' reluctance to even discuss them.
"You've a mystery to solve," said Mrs. Bloxby.
"I'm supposed to be meeting my destiny here, according to that fortune-teller."
"It's early days. You've only just arrived. I'm sure you'll stir something up. Oh, Charles phoned. Wanted to know where you were."
Agatha thought briefly of Sir Charles Fraith, lightweight, tightwad, fickle. "No, if my destiny is to meet some fellow, I don't want him hanging around."
"So, any eligible men around?"
"Apart from some gnarled old codger who put his hand on my knee and a sweaty estate agent, I haven't met any. And this cottage has no central heating, nothing but log fires."
"The weather can get grim over there. Are you sure you don't want to come back? You could use the lack of central heating as an excuse."
"Not yet, but you're right. I can leave this place any time I want. I meant to tell that estate agent I was leaving, but I'll hang on a bit longer."
After she had rung off, Agatha felt much cheered. Of course, she could simply pack up and go. But first, see what the local copper had to say.
She drove out of the village a little way and soon saw the police station. She parked outside and went and rang the bell. There was a police car on the short drive at the side, so she was sure PC Framp was at home.
After some minutes, the door was opened. PC Framp was a tall, thin man with receding hair above a lugubrious face. He had an apron on and was holding a frying pan.
"It's my day off," he said defensively.
Agatha ignored that. "My name is Agatha Raisin and I have just rented Lavender Cottage. There have been peculiar lights at the bottom of my garden and a vase is missing."
"Come in," he said wearily. "But don't mind if I cook my lunch."
Agatha followed him through the police office, and then along a corridor to a stone-flagged kitchen. It was amazingly dirty and smelt of sour milk. It was also very hot. The policeman put the frying pan on top of an Aga cooker, poured in oil, cracked in two eggs, then added two rashers of bacon and two slices of bread. A fine mist of fat rose from the pan and covered the already greasy black top of the cooker.
She sat down at a crumby plastic-topped kitchen table. She leaned her elbows on it and then realized she had put one elbow in a smear of marmalade. At last Framp shoveled the mess out of the frying pan onto a chipped and cracked plate and sat down opposite her.
"So," began Agatha impatiently, "what about these lights?"
"Some kids playing pranks."
"So you know that for a fact?"
"Educated guess." He stabbed the corner of a piece of fried bread into the yolk of an egg and shoved it in his mouth.
"So you don't really know?"
He chomped steadily, filled a mug with tea, took a great swallow, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then said, "Nothing important's ever taken. Just bits and pieces. A worthless picture, a cream jug, three forks, things like that."
"Why don't you come round to my cottage and fingerprint the place?"
"I don't fingerprint things. CID does that and they ain't going to come running over with their kit and the forensic boys over a load of junk."
"It doesn't seem to bother you that someone is frightening the village with their antics. They won't talk about it."
"Well, no, they wouldn't. Not to you."
"Why?"
"They think it's fairies."
Agatha stared at him and then said, "Oh, come on. Fairies at the bottom of the garden!"
"Fact."
"Fairies are not fact! And you've got egg on your chin. Look, the women I've met are not inbred peasants. They wouldn't believe in fairies."
"That they do. Some have been putting salt round their houses to keep the fairies away, others are leaving gifts like saucers of milk and things like that."
Agatha looked at him, puzzled, and then her face cleared. "Oh, I know what it is. You're pulling my leg."
"No. I'm telling you, Mrs. Raisin. This is a very old part of Britain and strange things do happen here."
"I don't believe in fairies and I don't think you do either." Agatha got to her feet. "I won't waste any more of your time. I'll solve the mystery myself. I am by way of being a detective."
She turned at the kitchen door and looked back, but he was dunking the last of his fried bread in the remaining egg.
Agatha got in her car in a bad temper. She drove slowly along until she came to a lodge-gate. This then must be the manor. She checked her watch. Three-thirty. Too early. She lowered the windows. The village of Fryfam nestled in pine woods and the air was sweet with the scent. A lazy bee blundered into the car, as if bewildered by all this late sunshine and warmth. Agatha wondered whether to swat it, but then realized she could not. She shrank back in her seat until it blundered out again.
Fairies, indeed! She decided furiously that the lazy policeman was probably trying to take the mickey out of a tourist.
Her thoughts turned to the vicar's wife, Mrs. Bloxby. Agatha knew that Mrs. Bloxby did not approve of her ongoing love for James Lacey and felt irritated. She should be sympathetic, understanding and supportive. Still, surely the whole reason for her flight to Norfolk, apart from the fortune-teller's prophecy, was to get James out of her hair. Not for a moment would she admit to herself that the real reason was because she wanted him to return to Carsely, find her gone and miss her.
She tried to jerk her thoughts back to the mystery of the dancing lights, but they kept returning to the way she would behave when she saw him again and what she would say. So immersed was she in her thoughts that it was with a start of surprise she realized the clock on the dash
board was registering five minutes past four. She started the car and turned into the drive. The pine trees were thick on either side. She was just wondering if she would ever reach the house when she turned a bend in the drive, and there it was, a square eighteenth-century building like a hunting-box, with a Victorian servants' wing stuck on one side. It had a small porticoed entrance with a very new coat of arms stuck on top. Two heraldic beasts supported a shield. Agatha squinted up as she got out of the car but could not make out the details. What had the Trumpington-Jameses put on their shield? Bathroom showers rampant?
She rang the bell at the side of the door. Lucy TrumpingtonJames answered the door wearing a gold silk Armani suit and a quantity of gold jewellery, chains round the neck and bracelets on her thin wrists.
"Come in," she said. "Tolly's in the drawing-room."
Agatha followed her across a dark hall with console tables topped with Chinese vases of autumn leaves. Harriet's work?
The drawing-room came as a shock to Agatha, who had been expecting something country-house with chintz, Persian rugs, and oil paintings. There were two large oatmeal sofas in front of the fire, the sort you made up of blocks of chairs. In front of them was an oblong black-lacquered table. The walls were painted blood-red and the fitted carpet was a gleaming expanse of white. The paintings were modern abstracts. The side tables were of white lacquer and covered with photo frames holding pictures of the Trumpington-Jameses out hunting, at parties, at Henley, at Ascot and various other fashionable places. A black-lacquered wall unit held a television set, a CD player and very new and unread-looking books. The fire was one of those electric fake-log ones. The room was bright; lit by a crystal chandelier overhead, and by angular brass standard lamps in corners.
"Do sit down, Mrs. Raisin," said Tolly Trumpington-James, rising to meet her. He was wearing a hacking jacket and cavalrytwill trousers. His Tattersall shirt was open at the neck.
