by M C Beaton
“Let that be a lesson to you,” shouted Ratcliffe. “I’m going for my dogs.”
He strode off. James climbed over the gate and knelt beside Jeffrey. He mopped at the blood with his handkerchief and felt gingerly along the bridge of Jeffrey’s nose. “You’re lucky,” he said. “Nothing broken. We’d best get you back before he turns the dogs on us. You’ll feel better after a drink and then we’ll go to the police.” The injured Jeffrey was tenderly helped back over the gate. Fussing over him, they led their injured leader from the field.
They have a point, thought Agatha in surprise; some of these landowners are right bastards. She almost forgot about the murder. The attack on Jeffrey had drawn them all together wonderfully. By the time they were seated in the Grapes, the old Agatha had surfaced and was explaining how she would consult a lawyer and make sure the right of way was opened up.
Jeffrey, recovered after James had bought him two double brandies, said he did not want to go to the police, but he was grateful to Agatha for volunteering to make life hot for Ratcliffe. They all proceeded to drink quite a lot and everything was going merrily until Deborah was overheard asking Agatha what she should wear to dinner at Barfield House.
Mary Trapp rounded on her. “Never tell me you’re going there! That’s the enemy.”
Deborah blushed painfully. “Sir Charles is all right,” she said defensively. “He’s not like Ratcliffe!”
“You are betraying your class,” said Alice ponderously.
“Wear a pretty blouse and skirt,” said James, addressing Deborah.
She looked at him in surprise. “But I bought a black velvet dinner gown from the thrift shop.”
“Too overdressed,” said James. “When in doubt, dress down, not up.”
“You never were one of us, Deborah,” said Jeffrey. “Trust you to go over to the other side.”
Deborah did not say anything. She simply walked out of the pub. She was not going to let anything take the gloss off the forthcoming evening.
They watched her go and then fell to berating Ratcliffe over again until cheerfulness was restored.
James and Agatha walked companionably home. “We’ll get changed and go out for dinner,” said James, and all Agatha’s hopes flooded back into her tipsy brain and she startled James by accompanying him out to the hotel dining-room in a short black dress with a very low neckline indeed, very high heels, and very much make–up.
It was a good thing, thought James, that he had not advised Agatha to dress down. Dressing down for the evening was obviously a foreign idea to Agatha Raisin!
Seven
Deborah drove out to Barfield House wearing the black velvet dinner gown. She had consulted the buyer in Dembley’s most expensive dress shop and the buyer had said a dinner gown was de rigueur. The stultifying gentility of the buyer had impressed Deborah no end.
She was also clutching a silver sequinned evening bag.
Deborah was unlucky. It could easily have been formal dress and then her dinner gown, although a bit over the top for a young woman and more suitable for a dowager, would have fitted in with the scenery, but as the guests were simply some old friends Sir Charles had staying for the weekend, the dress was informal. She found that out as soon as she entered the drawing-room. Certainly the men were wearing collar and tie, but the women were in summer dresses. Deborah stood awkwardly in the doorway, feeling like a child widow.
Sir Charles sailed up and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. “You’re looking very slinky,” he said, and just when Deborah was beginning to feel better, he added, “Like that woman in The Addams Family.”
Although his aunt should have introduced Deborah all round, as she acted as hostess for Sir Charles, Mrs Tassy had not even looked up when Deborah entered, so Sir Charles did the honours. There were a Colonel and Mrs Devereaux and their daughter, Sarah. Then a thin young man called Peter Hailey and his friend, small, chubby and noisy, a Henry Barr-Derrington; and a heavy-set, brooding type of girl, Arabella Tierney. They all stared at Deborah when she was introduced. She said to each, “Pleased to meet you.” Deborah would normally have said, “Pleased ter meet you,” but she had been refining her accent.
It was not that anyone was precisely rude to her but more slightly surprised and then dismissive. That was it. She felt she had been summed up and dismissed. She thought she heard Henry murmur, “That must be Charles’s latest aberration,” but decided, as she had done in the past, that nervousness was making her hear insults that had never existed.
Mrs Tassy then bore down on Deborah with the weary air of one recollecting her duties. “My dear child,” she said, “such a warm frock. Aren’t you too hot in that?”
“No, thank you, I’m fine,” said Deborah, catching a malicious smile on the face of Gustav.
Gustav announced dinner, and Deborah was relieved to learn she was sitting next to Sir Charles.
The table looked pretty with candles and flowers, and as the meal progressed, Deborah could not help noticing that it was a much simpler affair than the heavy lunch that had been inflicted on her when she came with Agatha. But, oh, she wished she had not come. They were all such dreadful snobs…
And then conversation turned to the murder and Sir Charles said that Deborah was one of the Dembley Walkers and Deborah immediately found herself the focus of attention. She was asked to tell them all about it. She did so, at first shyly, but then gaining confidence from their rapt attention, and when she finished up with a description of that day’s walk and the confrontation with Farmer Ratcliffe, she had the table’s sympathy.
“That man is a boor,” said the colonel roundly. “It’s a pity your friend Jeffrey didn’t manage to punch him.” And so the conversation went on about the iniquities of Ratcliffe until Mrs Tassy rose to indicate the ladies should follow her to the drawing-room.
In the drawing-room Mrs Devereaux sat down next to Deborah and asked her what subject she taught, and having learned it was physics asked her advice about helping a young nephew who was deficient in the subject, and that took up the time until the men joined them.
Deborah found that, by ignoring the very presence of Gustav, she was able to relax. Everyone was nice, after all. She became elated and quite pretty and when Peter and Henry began to tease her and flirt with her, she positively glowed.
When the evening finished and Sir Charles kissed her warmly on the cheek, she drove off feeling that no drug in the world could possibly give her the high she was on.
Later, Gustav stacked the glasses in the dishwasher. Mrs Pretty, hired from the village to cook for the evening, was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a glass of port. “So who’s this girl Sir Charles has got?” she asked.
“How did you hear about her?” asked Gustav.
“People talk. They were seen together in Burger King. Is he serious about her? Will he marry her?”
“Over her dead body,” said Gustav, and the cook laughed.
At one in the morning, Jeffrey heard a knock at his door. He had been watching a late movie and so had not gone to bed. At first he wondered whether it might be the police again and if he could pretend to be asleep, but as the knocking increased in force, he decided he had better answer it.
He opened the door. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, his voice light with relief. “Come in. I thought it was the police.”
Agatha awoke to the sound of police sirens. She ran out of her bedroom and looked down from the kitchen window, which overlooked Sheep Street. Another police car raced past underneath.
James awoke with a start and stared at the white, mask-like face of Agatha Raisin looking down at him. She had forgotten all about the face pack she had put on before going to bed.
“What is it?”
“Police cars, lots of them, tearing out of Dembley,” said Agatha. “Something’s happened.”
“May have nothing to do with our ramblers,” said James sleepily.
Agatha tugged impatiently at his pyjama jacket. “Oh, come on, James. I f
eel it’s something to do with our lot. Hurry!”
James grumbled but nonetheless got ready with such speed that he was down in the car and waiting for Agatha when she ran down to the street. “You’ve got little bits of face mask still about your ears,” he said, and that miserable thought preoccupied Agatha as they drove out of Dembley, with her squinting into a compact mirror and scrubbing at the white clay with a handkerchief.
They were automatically heading for the Barfield estate when, across the fields in the light of the rising sun, they saw in the distance a little cluster of flashing blue lights.
“Ratcliffe’s land,” said James. They drove on in silence.
James stopped near the stile they had climbed over the day before, parking behind the police cars. A group of uniformed and plainclothes men were over by the gate where Jeffrey had had his fight with Ratcliffe.
As they walked up to the group, a policeman detached himself and ran towards them, holding up his hand and shouting, “Stay back!”
But then Bill Wong appeared and waved them forward. “What are you two doing here?” he demanded sharply.
“We heard the police cars and followed. What’s happened?” asked Agatha, all the time praying: Don’t let it be Deborah. If it’s Deborah, I’ve failed.
“It’s Jeffrey Benson,” said Bill. “He’s dead.”
“Shot?” asked James. “Did Ratcliffe shoot him?”
“Ratcliffe’s over there. What’s this about Ratcliffe?”
James told him about the fight the day before. “We’ll be questioning Ratcliffe,” said Bill grimly. “He’s the one who found the body. But at the moment it looks like an accident. Jeffrey was cutting the padlock on the gate, or that’s what it looks like, when he fell and struck his head on a rock. But we’ll know more after the pathologist gets a look at the body. We’ll need a full statement from both of you and the other walkers.”
“Do you think if he was murdered that it might be the IRA?” asked James.
“Hardly think so. A bullet in the back of the head is more their style. Or such an insignificant cog as Jeffrey was would get knee-capped at the most.”
“Can we have a look?” asked Agatha. “We may be able to notice something that’s different to yesterday.”
“Wait there,” commanded Bill. He went over and talked to his superiors. Several heads swivelled in their direction and then they were called forward. The crowd of men parted to let them through.
Jeffrey Benson lay sprawled on the ground below the gate. Beside him lay a huge pair of wire-cutters. On the other side of him lay a sharp rock.
“That rock wasn’t there before,” said Agatha.
“Are you sure?” demanded Bill.
“I think she’s right,” said James slowly. “It was such a violent scene that everything in the immediate vicinity became etched on our minds.”
One of the forensic men in white overalls was called forward. He put a long steel implement under the rock and raised it gently. “Dry underneath,” he said. “It certainly hasn’t been here long.”
“So,” said Wilkes, speaking for the first time, “although at first sight it looks as if he was climbing over the gate, fell off, and broke his neck, it seems as if actually someone could have struck him a blow on the head with that rock. You two had better get home and leave things to us. We’ll see you later for a statement.”
Agatha was led off by James. When they reached the stile, her teeth began to chatter and she stumbled as she was getting over. He had climbed over first. He reached up strong arms and lifted her down. It was one of the scenes Agatha had played out in her mind when she had dreamt of them rambling together, but now all she could do was wish she had never seen that dead body. She knew that it would haunt her dreams.
James fussed over her when they got home, making her drink a cup of hot sweet tea, take a couple of aspirin, and go back to bed.
She lay for a long time shivering, twisting and turning before she finally fell asleep.
The Dembley Walkers met in the Grapes on Sunday evening at six because Peter and Terry were on duty at the restaurant at seven. Agatha and James were there, having been telephoned by a frantic Deborah, screaming that they were all going to be murdered, and what was Agatha doing about it?
James looked around the quiet and subdued group and said, “Where’s Mary Trapp?”
“Helping the police with their inquiries,” said Kelvin gloomily.
“Why?”
“Her neighbours said they heard her going out during the night. She’s got a dotty dog lover living next door,” said Peter. “Dog decides it wants walkies at two in the morning. Neighbour sees Mary all kitted out in her boots and shorts turning the corner of the street.”
“Mary couldn’t have done it, could she?” asked Agatha, thinking uneasily that they had not yet checked up on her.
“We were just talking about that before you came in,” said Deborah. “None of us really knows anything about Mary. She and Jessica were close. But then Jessica was close to all of us.” She began to cry. “I can’t stand this.”
“I suppose we all had alibis for last night?” said James.
He looked round the group. There was a gloomy shaking of heads. The murder had taken place during the night and all of them claimed to have been in their beds.
“I think they’re still questioning Ratcliffe. He was once in prison for beating up a man in a pub,” said Kelvin. “Mark ma words, this one had naethin’ to dae with Jessica’s murder. Jeffrey went out during the night wi’ thae wire-cutters, Ratcliffe saw him, picked up thon rock and shied it at him and Jeffrey fell down dead.”
“So it wasn’t an accident?” asked Agatha.
“No,” said Kelvin. “They’re treating it as murder.”
The door opened and Bill Wong came in, followed by a policeman and policewoman. He came up to their table. “Alice Dewhurst,” he said, “we want you to accompany us to the station.”
“Why?” demanded Alice, turning a muddy colour.
“Just a few questions. Come along.”
“What’s that all about?” they asked Gemma.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“Was Alice with you all night?” asked Peter.
Again that shrug. “Don’t ask me. I took one of them barbiturates and was dead to the world until she brought my tea in the morning.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” said Terry. “You know Alice could never have done it.”
“I dunno,” said Gemma to their surprise. “Got ever such a nasty temper.”
“But why on earth would she want to biff Jeffrey?” asked Agatha.
“Maybe because she thought he killed Jessica,” said Gemma, scooping up a handful of peanuts from a bowl on the table.
“Not very loyal, are we, darling?” commented Terry.
“Actually I’m a bit tired of Alice,” said Gemma, looking earnestly round at them. “She gets on my tits.”
“Oh, we all knew that, sweetie,” said Peter and nudged Terry and sniggered.
Peter turned his attention to James and Agatha. “And just what were our loving couple doing last night?”
“What do you think?” asked James.
“Oh, don’t pull that one. I should have thought romance went down the plug hole for you two a million years ago.” Peter sounded suddenly waspish.
“You’d better watch out, you dismal little twit, or I’ll biff you,” said Agatha. “Shouldn’t you and your fairy friend here be off to that slum of a restaurant to serve up another dose of salmonella to your customers?”
“Nasty, nasty,” chided Peter, quite unfazed. “Come on, Terry. Duty calls.”
The party broke up with their going. James and Agatha went back to their flat.
“Well,” said James gloomily, “I haven’t a clue. What about you?”
Agatha shook her head. “As far as I’m concerned, any of them could have done it. I can’t look at them objectively any more. I’m beginning to dislike
the lot of them.”
“Let’s have a drink and think about dinner. What do you want?”
“Gin and tonic, please. Oh, there’s someone at the door.”
James put down the gin bottle and went to answer it. He hoped it wasn’t one of the walkers. He felt he had had enough of them for one day.
But it was Bill Wong, who said, “May I come in? I have some news that might interest you.”
He refused a drink. “Is it about Alice?” asked Agatha.
He nodded. “We’ve been digging into the past life of all the suspects. We got some old newsreel film of the Greenham Common women. One report, trying to prove they were all noisy slags, had interesting footage of Alice and Jessica, a younger Alice and Jessica, having a stand-up fight. Now Alice said in her statement that she did not know Jessica before Jessica came to Dembley, so why did she lie?”
“And what does she say?” asked James.
“She says she had forgotten all about it, that she always thought there was something familiar about Jessica. She’s still lying, but we can’t get her to say anything else. Now if Jeffrey knew anything about her and Alice, Alice might have decided to shut him up. She could have called on him and suggested it would be a great idea to get even with Ratcliffe by cutting the padlock on that gate.”
“Were the wire-cutters hers?” asked Agatha.
“No luck there. Jeffrey had bought them himself six weeks ago to get even with another landowner who had padlocked and chained a gate over a right of way. You’ve been with these people. You were on that walk. There must be one of them who struck you as being capable of murder.”
James looked at Agatha, and Agatha looked at James. Both shook their heads.
“These murders have twisted up my mind so much that I look at them and think any of them could have done it,” said James.
Bill sighed. “Normally I would be telling you both to go home and forget about all this, but I keep hoping that in your amateur way you might hit on something.”
