The Dead Ringer

by M C Beaton

  The menu showed a list of pizzas, spaghetti Bolognese and lasagne. There was no drinks license. “No wonder it’s a free meal,” grumbled James.

  “What puzzles me,” said Agatha, “is why our bishop should involve his business affair with a Greek restaurant.”

  “Probably launders money,” said Charles. “His adopted family are rich, made their money in steel in the days when steel was worth something, and I doubt if he has any morals at all.”

  “So why go into the church?”

  “Power. Besides, he gets to dress up. Nice robes.”

  James said, “It seems as if you are supposed to go up to the counter and order what you want. Let’s scrub it.”

  “I never scrub a free meal,” said Charles. “Come on. Orders, please.”

  “Tell you what,” said James. “I brought some nice wine back from Italy. Let’s take the meal to my place.”

  * * *

  After they had finished eating and James was clearing away the dishes, Charles said, “Stop dreaming about exposing the bish as a murderer, Aggie.”

  “Don’t call me Aggie. Why not?”

  “You are not being paid to investigate.”

  “Humour me. Tell me about the missing heiress. You are bound to have known her, in your heiress hunting.”

  “Tall girl. Big nose, small mouth, big hands and feet, dyed blonde hair but oh, that laugh. Enough to make any man want to strangle her. She actually laughed—haw, haw, haw—so loud she could have been heard all over Mircester. I’m not joking. The wedding was all set when she suddenly disappeared. Distraught parents. Peter on television looking noble, offering a fifty-thousand-pound award.”

  “Now, that’s interesting,” said Agatha, her bearlike eyes gleaming.

  “What is?” asked James, carrying in a tray of coffee.

  “The fact that Peter should offer a large award for information leading to the finding of his fiancée,” said Agatha. “I think he’s mean so I think he knew damn well she wasn’t going to be found.”

  “She wasn’t his fiancée. In fact, she was expected to marry some farming chap,” said James.

  “I’d forgotten that,” said Agatha. “Name was Lawrence something or other.”

  “I’m bored,” said Charles. “What about bed, Agatha?”

  “Just as long as it isn’t mine,” snapped Agatha.

  “Forget the whole thing,” said James. “No one is paying you to investigate.”

  “You’re right,” said Agatha. “Our bishop is a waste of space.”

  But she did not know then that one insult would change her mind.

  * * *

  A busy volume of work in the following weeks kept the bishop from her thoughts. One sunny Saturday morning, Mrs. Bloxby called on Agatha.

  “I am worried about the Dupin sisters,” said the vicar’s wife. “Peter Salver-Hinkley is making trouble there. If you are free, we could visit Helen Toms and find out more.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “I think he is getting money from them. They are supposed to be very rich. But I think they get money from a trust and what was generous when they were younger won’t go very far now.”

  “What could I do?” asked Agatha.

  “You could warn them.”

  “I don’t carry any weight.”

  “Oh, do help.”

  * * *

  Helen Toms greeted them with a sunny smile. She said the vicar was resting and suggested they have tea in the garden. She exuded an air of triumph, thought Agatha. Funny atmosphere.

  “I’ll go to the toilet first,” said Agatha.

  “Me, too,” said Mrs. Bloxby, feeling she needed Agatha’s support when finally asking Helen for her support in confronting the Dupins.

  I don’t like this village, thought Mrs. Bloxby.

  “Help!” came a faint cry from behind a door on Agatha’s left. She tried to open the door, but it was locked.

  Mrs. Bloxby pointed to a large key lying on a small table outside the door. Agatha inserted the key in the lock and opened the door. Peregrine Toms, the vicar, was bound to a chair in front of a desk. There was caked blood from a wound on the back of his head.

  Agatha reached for her phone. “No!” he cried. “The shame of it.”

  Ignoring him, Agatha asked for police and ambulance services. “Did your wife do this?” she asked.

  “It was Mavis Dupin. She crept up and hit me,” he said. “I will never live this down. Why did you call the police, you interfering old bag?”

  Agatha was just about to untie his bindings but now she withdrew her hands and said, “Better the police see you as you are.”

  “Interfering cow. I’ll get you for this.”

  Agatha slowly turned round. She could swear the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped. Mavis Dupin was standing in the doorway.

  “I’ve called the police and ambulance,” said Agatha. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

  “We were playing a game,” wailed Mavis. “It’s called Bondage. Isn’t that right, vicar?”

  “How do you explain that nasty wound on his head?”

  “It was an accident,” said Peregrine. “I fell and bumped my head on the desk.”

  “Now then. What’s all this?”

  Policeman Larry Jensen stood in the doorway. “I see the reverend is tied up with a bash on his head. Who did this?”

  The vicar and Mavis stated a chorus of it being just a game and Agatha had insisted in dramatizing the situation.

  Mrs. Bloxby’s cool voice sounded. “When Mrs. Raisin and I entered the vicarage, we heard a cry for help coming from this room. The door was locked. We unlocked it with a key I found on the table outside. We found the vicar in this state.”

  “I am a Dupin,” said Mavis, throwing her head so far back that all could see up the famous Dupin nose. “I never lie. Peregrine and I were playing a game called Bondage. It is perfectly respectable and is played at parties at the bishop’s palace.”

  Larry’s eyes gleamed. He earned extra money by leaking stories to the press. This one could be gold. He saw the shrewd assessing look in Agatha’s eyes and said hurriedly, “As this is a police investigation, Mrs. Raisin, wait outside and take your friend with you.”

  “You will need our statements,” said Agatha.

  “Yes, yes. Later.”

  But Larry was foiled by the arrival of the paramedics. And suddenly the room was full of people: Helen, bending over her husband; Bishop Peter Salver-Hinkley talking intensely to Mavis and Millicent Dupin and the rest of the bell ringers.

  Agatha and Mrs. Bloxby had retreated to the front lawn when they were joined by the lawyer, Julian Brody. “Did the bishop encourage Mavis to bash the vicar?” demanded Agatha.

  Julian sighed. He looked down the sunny lawn and over to the green wold dotted with sheep that lay on the other side. “No, I did not,” he said finally. “The bishop moved amongst us like a fallen angel. I think he put the Dupin sisters up to this.”

  “Helen seemed to be enjoying herself,” said Agatha.

  “Nonsense!” he said firmly. And then that sigh came again. “I keep my hand in by doing a bit of conveyancing,” said Julian. “I inherited quite a lot of money from an uncle and left London. The Cotswold dream. Then along comes our bishop and the show is over and I am left on the stage in the middle of the badly painted scenery with a load of stock characters. Evil bishop, beaten wife turning into a bitchy doormat, spinster twins and bells, bells, bells. And the rest of the bell ringers are types can be found in London.”

  “Geography is no escape,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “You are like someone who goes on a beach holiday to Thailand and thinks if only life could be like this all year round. Inherit money, goes off with family, one month in, teenagers on drugs and wife off with a local and then he gets a tropical disease. Misery can happen anywhere, Mr. Brody.”

  Julian gave a reluctant laugh. “What a Pickwickian summary of disaster. Here’s the ambulance. My cottage is ju
st next door. Let’s go there. Gin, I think. It’s a gin day.”

  Agatha beamed, noticing for the first time how good-looking he was with his curly black hair and tanned face. And if you went out with him, came a nasty little thought, wouldn’t Charles just hate it.

  Mrs. Bloxby was glad they were going to Julian’s house. She shrewdly guessed that he was not the type to raise a new obsession in Agatha’s breast.

  * * *

  They sat in Julian’s garden, slumped lazily in deck chairs. Great fleecy clouds sailed overhead. “There you are, Mrs. Bloxby,” said Julian, pointing to the clouds. “That’s what happens to sheep when they die.”

  No reply, for Mrs. Bloxby had fallen asleep.

  “I’m interested in what’s been going on here,” said Agatha, keeping her voice low so as not to wake her friend.

  “We were going on as usual,” said Julian, his voice sounding weary. “Cling, clang, clong go the bells. We occasionally squabble, I chase Helen, and Gloria chases me. I felt I had freed my princess. I took a photo of the vicar drinking and smoking at his desk when he said he was ill, and threatened to put it on the notice board at the church if he hit his wife again. I think he made sure next time he didn’t mark her and she refused to tell me anything and along came the bish. I’m guessing but I think he got Helen to tell the truth. Then he wound up the Dupins to play bondage games. He may even have suggested that a good beating might even the score. He was seen walking and talking with Helen and she began to look radiant.”

  “Of course she did,” said Agatha. “These weak women, come-and-hit-me-again women, are nothing if not manipulative.”

  “Has anyone ever told you how horrible you are?” asked Julian.

  “Often. May I have another G&T? Don’t look so mutinous. I’ll tell you how we’ll get him away from Helen.”

  “I will keep you to that. One G&T coming up. Ice? There you are. Now, how do we do it?”

  “That heiress who disappeared. Wouldn’t you just like to find out that it was our bishop that got rid of her?”

  “Of course. But how? I am sure the police tried. But not hard enough.”

  “As no one is paying me to find out; you will need to lie and hint at a mysterious donor of massive funds to find out what happened to the girl.”

  “Dammit, I will pay you.”

  “Thank you. Call at my office on Monday morning and sign the contracts and we will discuss time and payment then.”

  * * *

  Agatha woke Mrs. Bloxby and suggested they leave. Julian waved them good-bye and then frowned as he saw a group of bell ringers bearing down on him. In the lead came the sexton and the butcher followed by the schoolteacher and the divorcée, Gloria.

  “You’ve got to help us to stop that damned bishop from coming here,” said the sexton, Harry Bury. “T’ain’t fair the way he messes things up. The Dupin girls are all in a flutter. He keeps visiting them and so they miss rehearsals whilst they twitter about.” He raised his voice in shrill mockery, “‘Oh, do have some of our seedcake, bishop.’ I’d take their seedcake and shove it up their arses.”

  “No room for it, ducks,” said Gloria. “Our dear bishop is already up there and taken up all the space.”

  Agatha turned around at the bottom of the garden. A breeze had sprung up and cloud shadows chased across the lawn and across the angry faces surrounding Julian. And there was Peter, in the vicarage garden next door, well aware of all the jealousy and fuss. Suddenly aware of a premonition of some sort of danger, Agatha began to wish she had never agreed to take on the case for Julian. She heard footsteps behind her and swung around. Charles came hurrying up. “Leaving?” he asked.

  “I’ll just have a word with Peter,” said Agatha, and Mrs. Bloxby supressed a groan. But to Agatha’s annoyance, Charles showed no sign of either following her or of being jealous. The bishop saw her coming, detached himself from the eager Dupins, and approached her, the sun shining on the purple silk of his tunic.

  “I really do owe you a decent meal,” he said. “You must have been wondering about my dreadful taste in restaurants. Actually, I’ve got money invested in that wretched place. But it’ll pay if I ever get a decent manager. Now, what about dinner at Harry’s?”

  Harry’s was a very good restaurant, specialising in steaks.

  “All right,” said Agatha. “When?”

  “Well, what about tonight?”

  “Peter!” came a wail from behind them. “You are coming to us for dinner tonight!”

  He turned the blast of his charm on the twins whose brogues had made no sound on the grass as they had sidled up to hear what he was talking about. “My poor old brain. How can you forgive me? Agatha. I will phone you.”

  “Do that,” said Agatha grumpily, because she saw that Gloria, the bell ringing divorcée, had joined Charles and was hanging onto his arm. “Coming, Charles?” she said, and then walked off with Mrs. Bloxby, fully expecting him to follow. But when she reached her car and turned around, he had strolled off in the other direction with Gloria and not once did he look back.

  * * *

  After Agatha had dropped her friend off at the vicarage, she drove slowly home. She was hungry, but, somehow, she had put about an inch on her waistline. “And how did that happen?” she asked aloud as she got out of her car. To her surprise, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong and Detective Constable Alice Peterson were waiting for her.

  “What’s up?” asked Agatha. “Is Charles all right?” So she is keen on Charles, thought Bill. When the police call, the first person feared for, is the dearest.

  “Shall we go inside?” said Bill, aloud.

  “Go through to the garden. You know the way. I’ve got fresh lemonade. Like some?”

  “Maybe later. Homemade lemonade! You’re becoming a true villager.”

  It could be argued that, in a way, Agatha was becoming more like a village lady, having bought a pint of the lemonade in the village shop that morning along with several other villagers who were no doubt also claiming it as their own. Lying somehow increased with the good weather, as if lies, like flowers, had been dormant all winter.

  Agatha felt relaxed, if curious. She had just dropped off Mrs. Bloxby, it wasn’t Charles, so …

  “James!” she exclaimed. “Never tell me something has happened to James.”

  “Stop running through the names of the few people you actually care about,” said Bill. “Do you remember being on the scene when the vicar, Peregrine Toms, was found with his head bashed?”

  “Yes, and it seemed as if they had been playing some sort of sex game.”

  “The policeman on the spot was Larry Jensen.”

  “Very handsome? That one? He wanted rid of me. I wonder why?”

  “I got a call from the Mircester Telegraph this afternoon,” said Bill. “They asked what this was about sex games at a village vicarage with a bishop taking part. I asked where he was getting this from and all he said was, ‘Tell Larry to phone me. Bert Finnegan, news desk.’

  “So, I went in search of Larry to give him a rocket for leaking stories to the press and he wasn’t home. He was supposed to be on duty today.”

  Said Agatha, “He was first on the scene when I phoned for help.”

  “And what else?”

  “Julian, the lawyer, invited us to his garden next door for drinks and we went there. One of the twins—it’s hard to tell one from the other—was babbling on about bondage games. If Larry was selling stuff to the newspapers, he might feel he had hit gold. He may be there now looking for more dirt.”

  Agatha’s cats, Hodge and Boswell, had climbed up onto Bill’s lap. “My cats show more affection for you than they ever do for me,” said Agatha. “Now, what?”

  For Charles had just strolled into the garden. “What’s up?” he asked. “I saw the police car. I thought you tecs were supposed to drive around in unmarked cars.”

  “Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t,” said Bill, made lazy by the warm, close air of the evening.

/>   The phone rang and before Agatha could move, Charles had leapt to his feet to answer it. “He’s forgotten about the extension in the kitchen,” Agatha said. She darted into the kitchen, and seized the phone in time to hear Charles say primly, “I am afraid Mrs. Raisin is not at home.”

  “Oh, yes she is,” howled Agatha. Bill heard her then say, “Why, my very dear bishop, that would be lovely. I’ll meet you there at eight.”

  “Mistake,” said Charles when Agatha walked back into the garden.

  “Jealous, Charles?”

  “No, I am convinced he was the inventor of those sex games and I am sure he encouraged Helen into that business of punishing her husband.”

  “Get this. I am being paid to investigate that missing heiress.”

  “By Julian.”

  “How did you guess?”

  “Who else? Peter is not going to part with any cash. Oh, there goes the doorbell. I’ll get it.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Agatha. “My house, my doorbell.”

  But when she opened the door and found Mavis and Millicent on the step, mirror images of outrage, she wished she had let Charles answer it.

  “You are a scarlet woman!” howled Millicent.

  “I thought they didn’t say things like that since Victorian theatrical productions,” said Agatha. “Say what you have to say and shove off. Scarlet woman, indeed, when you two pussies were playing bondage games. Help!”

  For before she could leap back, Millicent had raked her nails down Agatha’s cheek.

  Agatha was lifted aside by Bill Wong. He got as far as, “Millicent Dupin, I am arresting you on a charge of…” when Agatha said, “I am not bringing charges.”

  “Why not?” said Bill. Millicent began to sob. “I’m sorry for them,” said Agatha, not in any Christian spirit of forgiveness but bearing out the wise words of Oscar Wilde, “Forgive your enemies. There is nothing they hate more.”

  This showed a shift in Agatha’s inferiority complex, which recently would have suggested to her that people like the Dupins must have sniffed out her common background. The old Agatha would have thirsted for revenge.

  “Run along,” said Agatha. “Shoo!”

  As the twins scampered into their old Daimler, Bill said, “I wonder if you should get a tetanus shot.”