The Dead Ringer

by M C Beaton

  * * *

  Then she had never even interviewed this farmer, Lawrence Crowther, said to be Jennifer’s fiancé. Now she knew why people talked of being shot by Cupid’s arrow. It was a love close to madness.

  The doorbell rang. Agatha gave her nose a final dusting of powder and went to answer it. Julian looked very handsome in formal dress and Agatha hoped that Charles would turn up at the ball. If he did, she also hoped it would be before Helen Toms put in an appearance because, once she arrived, it would be plain to everyone that Julian did not have eyes for anyone else.

  Julian flattered Agatha on her appearance, and Agatha, who usually took compliments with little grace, forced herself to charm him, remembering he was a client and the fact that he fancied a drip like Helen Toms did not make him sub-normal.

  The rain had stopped and the evening was full of the smell of roses and greenery. As they approached Barfield House and heard the thud of the music, Agatha began to dream that this was the evening when he would be waiting for her, that mysterious one she thought she had found in Terry. Poor Terry. Who on earth had killed him and why? That thought had been churning through her head for days now. What she had forgotten and now remembered was that he had enjoyed the reputation of a first-class reporter, having an acute intuition. She vowed that the next morning, she would go round Thirk Magna and question as many people as possible to see if Terry had talked to any of them and let fall some clue. And what about his photographer? Damn! She was slipping. All this intense thinking had made her forget her surroundings and it was only the sound of the majordomo announcing her name that made her aware of the fact that she was about to descend into the ballroom. She could not see Charles anywhere.

  Julian had seen Helen. “I wonder, Agatha…” he began.

  “Oh, go on. Make a fool of yourself,” said Agatha. “I’m going to look for Charles.”

  * * *

  A noisy disco dance had just finished and Agatha was cutting across the dance floor when she was waylaid by a stocky young woman wearing a crumpled white dress and baseball boots.

  “I’m Felicity Durne,” she boomed, thrusting her face forwards. She had bleached her moustache. Should have shaved, thought Agatha. “And you are that detective, Agatha Raisin.”

  “Yes? So?”

  “I was going to ask you to join our group, Feminism Lives. Then I saw your shoes and dearie, dearie me. Stilettos! At your age? You’re a disgrace to the cause. What have you got to say for yourself?”

  Suddenly Agatha was engulfed with a wave of rage against the whole stupid world in general and this woman in particular.

  “Oh, sod off, you creepy frump,” said Agatha.

  Felicity punched Agatha on the nose. Agatha screamed with pain and kicked Felicity in the shins, seized a glass of red wine from the tray of a passing waiter and poured it down the woman’s cleavage.

  Charles was ensconced in his study, a book in his hand and his slippered feet on a footstool when his elderly aunt dithered into the room. “You must rouse yourself, dear. Rouse, immediately. The Raisin woman is brawling in the ballroom.”

  “Can’t Gustav or the catering firm people stop it?”

  “No, dear. The Raisin creature and Felicity Durne are locked in combat and everyone is cheering them on.”

  “Drat the woman. It’s all right, aunt. I’ll stop it.”

  * * *

  In the ballroom, Charles thrust his way through the onlookers, grabbed Agatha, slung her over his shoulder and hurried from the ballroom while Felicity lay on the floor and screamed with rage.

  He dumped Agatha on the floor of his study and said, “Pull yourself together. Felicity is a pill. She’s mad. No one but you would have paid any attention to her. I assume she insulted you. She’s always insulting someone. Now, if you want a drink, get it yourself and then you may tell Uncle Charles why you came to this gig. Not your thing.”

  Agatha helped herself to a gin and tonic, sat down in an armchair by the fire and told him fictitious reasons for attending. She could hardly tell him she wanted to see if he could be made jealous. “There are people here I want to study. I gather from Julian that the bishop is here. Why on earth do you let that Felicity creature insult your guests?”

  “Because no one but you has ever taken her seriously. Oh, well, let’s go and dance. And, no, Agatha, I am not jealous. You should have chosen some other escort and not a man mooning over a drip of a vicar’s wife. Why is this bishop so mad keen on the old folks’ home?”

  “I should think because there is a lot of money in them these days. It can cost one and a half thousand a week, you know, and then if he can charm some old bird, she might leave the family money to him. Have you ever met his adopted mother?”

  “Lady Fathering, eldest daughter of the Earl of Hadshire? Once, in the south of France.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Loud, hard, seen too many old Noel Coward plays and has the long cigarette holder to prove it.”

  “And the husband?”

  “Harold Bisset, owned a chain of butcher shops. Sold out before the supermarkets started to woo away customers. Snob. Hints at a military background but ain’t got one. She’d already adopted Peter.”

  “Where did he come from?”

  “Told you. Best friend’s kid.”

  “I should have been working on this,” complained Agatha. “I’m slipping. Do you know, I haven’t even questioned Terry’s photographer.”

  “Well, of course you wouldn’t,” said Charles. “Frightened to find out that the love of your life was just to him another fling?” Two large tears spilled out of Agatha’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  “NO!” shouted Charles. “Let’s dance. I refuse to let you mourn.”

  But as he whirled Agatha onto the dance floor, Charles thought that he, too, was forgetting the basic facts, that Larry had been murdered and then Millicent followed by Terry, and Terry had been murdered in Agatha’s home. “Enter, bishop and dean,” said Charles, looking over Agatha’s shoulder. “First and second murderer. They look furtive. What have they been up to?”

  “Burying Ducksy where they have already buried Jennifer,” said Agatha. “That awful smell! The police dogs should find her soon.” I gather, her parents alerted the police after three days.

  “All this speculation about her ‘body odour,’ as my aunt calls it. She said that in her youth, there were advertisements for deodorant with a photo of one whispering to another, ‘You’ve got B.O.,’ followed by the legend, ‘Even your best friend won’t tell you.’ I always wondered who the one telling the other in the photo was supposed to be. Now Gustav would say anything to put me off marriage. The dean thinks it is sexual, the waiter thinks it is vodka. I think it is very simple. I just worked it out.”

  “That being?” asked Agatha. “You mean she’s a walking, talking red herring?”

  “No. It is all so simple. She loves smoked fish. I have seen her eat two kippers for breakfast. And finnan haddie for dinner, cooked in milk with three poached eggs on top.”

  “Are you sure? The world is full of idiots thinking that vodka doesn’t smell. Of course, they think it doesn’t smell of alcohol. Wrong! And if they sink a lot of the stuff, the most awful stink comes off them as if something had died inside.”

  “Well, they haven’t been able to find her. I’m sure that wretched dean has offed them?”

  “Offed? You do have a way with words. Oh, they’re playing ‘Hello Dolly’ and I must dance.”

  They moved onto the floor in a quickstep and Agatha began to sing, belting out the words.

  “Making a spectacle of yourself,” said Charles. “I am quite pink with embarrassment.”

  “I am sorry,” said Agatha, suddenly aware of all the amused looks from the other dancers. “I saw Barbra Streisand sing that when I was very young. I so wanted to be Streisand. No, I wanted to be Dolly. Oh, where’s that coming from?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “Menace,” said Agatha, hal
f to herself. She looked around. Bishop Peter was dancing with Helen Toms and she was gazing up into his face like a woman bewitched while Julian leaned against a pillar and watched them with jealous eyes.

  “It’s like one of those Victorian paintings, you know, every picture tells a story. Does our bish make you tremble, Aggie?”

  “Yes, with fear. I swear to God he’s a murderer and I am going to prove it. Uh-oh, here he comes.”

  “Mrs. Raisin—Agatha—I beg the next dance,” said Peter.

  “Oh, all right,” said Agatha with a marked lack of enthusiasm. But the bishop was a beautiful dancer and he looked handsome in formal dress and she soon began to enjoy herself.

  “Been murdering anyone lately?” asked Agatha.

  “Like Bluebeard,” he said. “I am just getting around to my fortieth virgin.”

  “Any sign of Ducksy?”

  “Not even a whiff. But they found her passport so she is still in the country.”

  “I am sure she will turn up in some crypt somewhere.”

  “Agatha! You are so ghoulish!” He jerked her more closely in his arms and she felt that wave of sexuality that he seemed able to turn on and off like a tap.

  She jerked backwards just in time as a large china vase went sailing past, dangerously close to her head. There was a startled silence as the band fell silent.

  Charles’s aunt wailed, “Uncle Arthur brought that back from Hong Kong.”

  “Never mind,” said Charles. “It’s not Ming. You all right, Agatha?”

  “That was meant for me,” she said. “Who’s up there?” Before Charles could stop her, she ran for the stairs to the gallery which overlooked the ballroom.

  Charles ran after her, but not before he noticed the bishop was looking amused.

  The gallery was empty.

  Chapter Seven

  Agatha left soon afterwards. She told Charles not to call the police. She’d had enough of questioning recently, she felt, to last her a lifetime. Also, everyone appeared to think that it had been Felicity Durne who had tried to throw the jar at her.

  She trailed through to the kitchen. She had told Julian that she meant to go straight to bed. “Where are you?” she called to her cats. “Come on, furry rat bags. People food if you come now. Cat food if you don’t.”

  Agatha had never thought of herself as an animal lover. Bill Wong had given her Hodge and she had picked up Boswell in London, mistaking the tabby for Hodge who had gone missing. James had chosen the names. Agatha was told that Dr. Johnston’s cat was named Hodge and his friend and biographer had been Boswell. Agatha loathed the doctor’s very name. He always seemed to be quoted in the Cotswolds by whippet-thin women who balanced with one hand on one hip, head thrown back, “As the dear doctor would say…”

  Opening the kitchen door, Agatha called into the darkness. “Where are you?”

  She experienced a sharp stab of fear. She ran down the garden, calling wildly. She ran back through her cottage, out the front door and banged on James’s door, shouting “Help!” at the top of her voice. A light went on in James’s cottage and he leaned out of the stair window.

  “James,” pleaded Agatha. “Someone’s taken my cats.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “They’ve never, ever gone away before.”

  “Go and phone the police. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  She was turning away when she heard a female voice call, “What’s going on, darling?”

  “Neighbour trouble. Go back to bed.”

  The idea that her ex might be involved with someone did not trouble her at this moment. She phoned police headquarters and then roused her whole detective staff. James arrived to find Agatha slumped on the kitchen floor, tears running down her cheeks.

  He handed her a large handkerchief and then went out into the garden, calling for the cats. Normally the police would ignore a call about missing cats, but Bill Wong, first of them to arrive, knew if they had been taken, it was a threat against Agatha.

  When her staff arrived, they soon left again to search the village.

  A tall woman draped in a man’s dressing gown came into the kitchen. She had blonde hair, high cheekbones and grey eyes. Even in her distress, Agatha recognised James’s dressing gown. “Where is James?” she asked.

  Mrs. Bloxby had just arrived. She went up to the woman and whispered something urgently and then sat down on the floor next to Agatha and put an arm round her shoulders. “Detective Wong is coming. I found him up the village. A note was put through my door.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Here he is.”

  “Agatha,” said Bill. “This is a ransom demand. Either you pay fifty thousand pounds by eleven o’clock tomorrow or your cats will be sent to you in pieces. Instructions on where to drop the money to arrive later.”

  * * *

  Agatha had once joked that all men from Glasgow seemed to be called Jimmy. But the waiter at the Greek restaurant was called Jimmy and he was in a rage. He had not received his wages. The manager had shrugged and said he hadn’t any money to spare. The restaurant was closing down and was reopening as a curry house.

  Jimmy hated the bishop with a passion but he was afraid of the dean. He decided that theft in this case was legitimate. He collected his skeleton keys, let himself into the palace and headed for the bishop’s office. He cursed with frustration when he saw a light shining under the door and heard voices. Pressing his ear to the panels, he heard the bishop say, “Are you sure that hard-bitten bitch cares about her cats?”

  “Wouldn’t keep them otherwise, now, would she? And the police aren’t going to turn out for a couple of cats.”

  And then the dean’s mocking voice. “A ransom note? Man, they’ll be combing the place. Did you have a rush of blood to the head or something?”

  “Dammit. She’d better pay up or the first furry paw goes out in the post. My mother is going through the books tomorrow with her accountant and I need the shortfall.”

  Jimmy retreated along the corridor and thought hard. He was sure if he told them to pay up or he would expose them that the dean would make something nasty happen to him. Agatha would be grateful. He’d tried to be a thief but all that happened was that he had been caught twice and sentenced to Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow.

  He decided to wait until they had gone for the night, rescue the cats, dump them somewhere in that village—Carsely, was it?—and then go back and see if he could rob the office. If charged with it, the bishop would have to say he, Jimmy, was miles away or he would shop both bishop and dean. It all seemed a bit muddled and small-time, but Jimmy knew in his bones, if he tried to fly higher, he always got caught.

  He crouched down in an alcove in the corridor until he heard them leave. They seemed to have left the cats behind. At last, when all was silent, he let himself in with a skeleton key after only half an hour of fiddling with the lock. Two pairs of eyes stared up at him from a large cat box. To his relief, the cats were quiet. There was a big safe in the corner. But when did anyone with any money keep it in a safe? He fiddled with the lock on a large desk and opened it up. Under the lid of the desk was a strong metal box. He opened it and found it crammed with thousands of pounds. His eyes gleamed. All he had to do was take the money, get on his motorbike and head for Spain. What about the cats?

  Oh, let them rot! Hodge let out a faint, plaintive miaow. Like a lot of villains, Jimmy was superstitious. If he abandoned the cats, then something really nasty would happen to him. He decided to dump the cats in that village after all. He was consumed with a sudden hatred for the bishop so, although it took some agility, he managed to defecate in the desk and pee all over the leather chair in front of it.

  * * *

  Agatha was asleep, having exhausted herself crying. Mrs. Bloxby was asleep as well, an arm around Agatha’s shoulders. Voices could be heard coming from outside as more and more people joined in the hunt.

  Something woke Mrs. Bloxby. She wearily opened her eyes and sta
red down into Hodge’s face. She let out a yelp and poked Agatha hard in the ribs as Boswell joined Hodge.

  “Oh, Mrs. Raisin. Oh, wake up!”

  As the news spread, Agatha’s staff came back to watch the two cats tucking into canned mackerel in tomato sauce, one of their favourites.

  Now the fun begins, thought Mrs. Bloxby, seeing a sudden shadow cross Agatha’s face. If I stay much longer, she’s going to grill me about Mr. Lacey’s friend. So, she gave Agatha a final hug and hurried off.

  * * *

  The bishop was in a cold fury as he surveyed the mess of his office. He knew he could not call the police because no matter how much he scrubbed and cleaned, he was sure a forensic team would find a cat hair somewhere.

  The dean’s voice sounded from behind him. “We should have left the money for the old folks’ home. I mean, all of it, instead of that highly expensive adventure in Thailand. Why didn’t you guess the girl was underage?”

  “Because the whole damn country seemed to be full of very young girls on offer.”

  “Yeah. But you happened to set your sights on a blonde called Sharon from Essex. And she was accompanied by that battle-axe of a sister. What came over you? Usually you are content if they run after you, but definitely hands off.”

  Bishop Peter gave a bitter laugh. “What a little actress she was! All that glory of golden hair and sunburnt freckled face. Now we’d better scrub out this filth.”

  “It was all your idea. Your filth,” said the dean. “Mortification is good for the soul.”

  * * *

  Agatha had collapsed into an exhausted sleep on the sofa with the cats sprawled on her lap. When she awoke, everything came flooding back. How exhausting all those police statements had been. But the cats were safe. There was a police guard outside her cottage. So why this black shadow lurking in a corner of her brain?

  She sat up suddenly, dislodging the protesting cats. James!

  She had meant to find out about that woman but first were all the statements, then she was urged to rest, everyone suddenly deaf to her questions.