The Dead Ringer

by M C Beaton

* * *

  Toni was sitting at Agatha’s desk three days’ later, looking through the files of jobs still to be done. Patrick and Phil accepted the fact that Agatha always put the young girl in charge, but Simon was apt to get mutinous about it and slack off.

  She had closed up for the day and scowled when she heard someone coming up the stairs. A voice called, “Hi! It’s Charles. I’m back!”

  Toni unlocked the door. “She’s not here. Gone to Bulgaria.”

  “Why?”

  “Loose ends in the Mavis case.”

  “Oh, the stupid woman. Mavis is locked up in a psychiatric prison. So, what now? I’ll buy you dinner and you can tell me all about it.”

  “Can’t risk it,” said Toni. “I am saving up for a new flat.”

  “What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means we’ll go to an expensive restaurant and you will as usual have forgotten your wallet, so come in and sit down and listen.”

  Charles half turned to go because he thought a young girl like Toni should show more respect and … oh, he’d better find out about Agatha.

  “To make it short,” began Toni. She succinctly outlined the little she knew.

  Charles groaned. “If there is any truth behind her suspicions, maybe someone else will crop up in her fevered brain.”

  “Do you miss her?” asked Toni.

  “Of course. We are friends. There are plenty of women around for the other thing.”

  Toni sighed and switched on the computer. “Like mindless sex?”

  Charles looked at the glowing blonde beauty that was Toni and his eyes sharpened.

  Without taking her eyes off the computer screen, Toni said, “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Wasn’t,” lied Charles, but thinking that Toni was showing all the mind-reading intuition that her boss had on a good day.

  * * *

  He decided to drive over to Thirk Magna. He was just in time for Evensong. The vicar was showing no signs of being battered. In fact, he looked smugger than ever. But he did have a beautiful voice as he read the third collect.

  “‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thine only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ: Amen.’”

  Charles suddenly realised sharply how much he missed Agatha. Only Agatha would understand that somehow when you stood in one of these ancient churches, the old sinister medieaval Cotswolds that believed in witches seemed to seep out of the very stones.

  He had run away from the temptation of asking her to marry him. And all because the county would think her out of place: opening the annual fête, making speeches, playing croquet, all those things his aunt coped with in her creaky way. And Gustav would leave him.

  But what if she married someone else? It suddenly didn’t bear thinking of. Even now, a lonely Agatha out in some godforsaken Bulgarian village might be promising to marry some dandruffed wanker while he sat in this creepy church singing, “Abide with Me.”

  Epilogue

  Agatha was sitting in a Stalinist-type hotel wondering what on earth had possessed her to come. She had wanted proof that Joseph had been poisoned. The police inspector had been firm but polite. Mr. Merrydown’s liver was in such a state that he was due to die anytime. Then a visit from the British consul telling her to go home.

  Harry had made a will in which he had left everything to his only surviving relative, a cousin from Birmingham called Sarah Jinks, a spinster lady of quite terrifying gentility. She had arrived the day before but turned a deaf ear to Agatha’s pleading to have a look in the house.

  Agatha, in order to keep her trim figure, had ordered a salad. It came with great square white blocks of what looked like feta cheese on top. Chewing the first one, she found it was lard and had to spit it out into her napkin. The piped music was recordings of Russian fishermen’s songs which all seemed to end each chorus with a yell of “Hi!”

  She had ordered the set meal, the next course being ravioli. But it turned out to be ravioli stuffed with bear and she thought she could refuse on the grounds that it was fattening and then spoiled it all by ordering cherry cake with double cream and a glass of slivovitz.

  The food in the villages was reported to be very good but hitherto she had felt too put down at her lack of success to feel like eating anything when she was there.

  She pulled out her mobile phone to call the airline at the airport and see if she could change her ticket when Charles sat down opposite her.

  Agatha smiled. Charles blinked. He had forgotten that smile of Agatha’s that when she was happy she could light up a whole room.

  “Oh, Charles, where have you been?”

  “Marking time, I think,” he said. “I gather you hope to find that Harry was second murderer.”

  “It stands to reason. You don’t chuck your pal down a well unless you’ve knocked him off. But there’s is a Miss Gentility got the villa now and she won’t let me in. Oh, Charles! You’ve got a title. If only you were a lord and not just a sir.”

  “Sorry. Great grandad didn’t pay Lloyd George enough.”

  “Come with me tomorrow.”

  “I might have an excuse to get us in there.”

  “Like what?”

  “I went to Evensong at Thirk Magna, and Gloria, the bell-ringing blonde tells me that Harry tried to pay her to go to bed with him and said he kept all the stuff in the house and didn’t fancy banks. Let her think we know where the stuff might be and I’ll bet she lets us in. What’s the food like?”

  “Ghastly.”

  Charles called the waiter over and asked for chocolate cake and a glass of slivovitz and ordered him to turn the music down.

  “How did you do that?” marvelled Agatha. “They wouldn’t do it for me.”

  “This is a man’s country. Home of the chauvinist pig. I might move here.”

  “And I want to hear about your travels.”

  “Let’s take the cake and brandy upstairs. I’m in your room.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “It’s a double room.”

  “Then keep to your bed and get up early to go with me to the villa.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * *

  Not yet, thought Agatha sleepily. Tomorrow, we’ll sleep together after I have proposed.

  Why don’t we just get married? thought Charles. Agatha is never boring.

  * * *

  The countryside was covered in snow as they made their way to Harry’s villa. The car Agatha had rented did not feel very secure, having rather worn-out tyres.

  Sarah Jinks answered the door and scowled horribly when she saw Agatha. “I told you to get lost,” she said, the refinement gone from her voice and the Brummie accent peeping through.

  Charles stepped forward. He had dressed with care and looked at his best. “Haven’t we met before?” he asked. “My card.”

  She glanced at his card and then looked closer and her face went through a series of odd convulsions, settling on what she might have thought a winning smile.

  “I have been to a fete at your house, Sir Charles. What a coincidence! And here is little me and you in the wilds of nowheah. I am surprised you should be with a private detective.”

  “Mrs. Raisin is an old friend, the Berkshire Raisins, you know.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Raisin, you should have said something. I usually recognise quality but I was thet flustered with all these foreign folks. Do come in. Come in. The kitchen is warm.

  “I have coffee ready. Why don’t we have a cup and maybe a leetle shot of the local brandy?”

  “That would be very kind,” said Charles.

  Sarah Jinks had stubby lashes which she batted at Charles. “Are you two an item?”

  “Yes,” said Agatha.

  “No,” said Charles.

  Sarah waggled a finger under Agatha’s nose. “I know where you are at, my dear. We do keep hoping.”

  Agatha le
t out a yelp of pain for Charles had kicked her under the table to supress the quite horrible remark he saw rising to Agatha’s lips.

  “Arthritis, dear?” asked Sarah. “An elderly aunt of mine has it something crool.”

  “I would just love some brandy,” said Charles loudly.

  When Sarah got up and went to open one of the kitchen cupboards, Charles whispered, “We want to search this place, get it? So shut up.”

  Sarah began to pour slivovitz into tiny glasses.

  “What is the toast in Bulgarian?” asked Sarah.

  “Up yours, I think,” muttered Agatha, and then yelped as Charles knocked her glass from her hand.

  “It’s the sweet taste, Agatha,” said Charles. “Sarah, don’t drink it. It has antifreeze in it. That must be how Joseph was killed.”

  “I will call the police,” shrieked Sarah.

  “Before you do that,” said Charles, “did you know that Harry hid a fortune in banknotes in this house? If you phone the police right away, they will turn the place over thoroughly and if they find any money, you will have years of bureaucratic trouble getting it.”

  “You look. Go on,” she said in her normal voice. “This is all too much.”

  Agatha and Charles searched all day. There was a safe in a dusty office but it contained nothing but old farm records. Finally, they told Sarah to call the police but not to mention the money.

  * * *

  “And I thought Wilkes back in Mircester was bad,” moaned Agatha as they got back to the hotel at midnight. “Questions and more questions and hand over our passports. And I am so hungry.”

  “Relax. I have with me in this large canvas bag, a beef casserole from the takeaway café in the village. I got it when I was out filling up the petrol tank. This elderly gentleman who is leering and bowing and scraping will let us use the kitchens. Do grease his palm with something, Aggie, and stop glaring at me.”

  Agatha thought she was giving the old waiter a ten euro note but actually it was a fifty euro note.

  She snatched her hand away as he looked as if he wanted to kiss it all night.

  Seated in the kitchen with the casserole heated and served and a reasonable bottle of wine on the table, Agatha said, “I have a sudden idea.”

  “Like what?”

  “I doubt if Sarah has any money of her own. Now, if a pair of people landed on my doorstep and told me that there was possibly a fortune in banknotes in the house, I would join in the search. But she didn’t. You know why?”

  “Tell me, Sherlock.”

  “Because she’s found it already. So, should it be true, do we tell the police?”

  “No, let her have it. You’ve made your point, Aggie. She’s invited us for lunch tomorrow. We’ll call round at police headquarters and see if we can leave.” He scowled out at the falling snow. “Agatha, I don’t usually have flashes of intuition like you, but I have a creepy feeling that we are going to be stuck here for days, even weeks.”

  “That’s just depression. It’s a poor place and it’s cold and we are far from home. Let’s go.”

  They returned the casserole dish, and bought another casserole, of lamb this time for the evening, and were crawling through a blinding blizzard when Charles skidded to a halt.

  “Don’t tell me we have to walk,” moaned Agatha. “These boots are definitely not made for walking.”

  “That’s because they’ve got stupid high heels. Another ten years and you will have bunions.”

  “Did you stop to give me a lecture on my footwear?”

  “I was wondering if murdering tendencies run in families. She may ask us when we arrive if we told the police about the money. If we say ‘no,’ she may kill us. Maybe she’s been up all night thinking if she got rid of us, she and the money would be safe.”

  Charles started the car again and crawled on, stopping at last in front of the hotel with a grunt of relief. “Amazing the way this old banger makes it, but unless the snow ploughs come out tonight, we won’t be seeing Jinks tomorrow.”

  * * *

  “Let’s make notes,” said Agatha, after dinner. “Where would you hide banknotes? He doesn’t have a library. Just a couple of paperbacks. Somewhere dry.”

  “I gather he bought the house which was being sold separate from the land,” said Charles. “There is a shed, a garage and a couple of broken-down outbuildings. Nothing very weatherproof. Why are you scowling?”

  “I cannot remember Mavis actually confessing to the murders.”

  “Last report was that she was mad and probably unfit to stand trial but for the police the fact that she came after you with a gun was enough and she must have stated something before she went round the bend.”

  “I am so tired,” said Agatha. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “I’ll finish this wine. You go ahead.”

  By the time Charles got upstairs it was to find Agatha fast asleep. He wondered whether to climb into bed beside her, but she had left her bedside lamp on and he saw the mark of tears on her cheeks. What had made her cry?

  * * *

  But when he asked her over breakfast, she shrugged and said she must have been having a bad dream. Agatha would not of course tell him that she no longer had the courage to propose to him. She guessed she was faced with the prospect of a lonely old age.

  “The snowplough has been out,” said Charles. “Do you really think she might bump us off?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How?”

  “Dunno. Smack on the back of the head with a shovel. Rat poison in the coffee. Or, here’s a thought, the one place we did not search was her bedroom because it seemed then an intrusion and she had locked the door.”

  “That must be it. How do we get in there?”

  “If we could drug her … I see the old retainer who you must have tipped a fortune because he is smiling and nodding and leering. Leave him to me.”

  When Charles came back, he said, “Now we wait.”

  “What for?”

  “His nephew is a pharmacist. I asked for a really powerful sleeping pill. We’ll drug her coffee.”

  “You know, Charles,” said Agatha, “if we find the money, I don’t want to give it to her. Now, if we told the police and indicated we would keep silent about it if we had our passports back, they might be obliging.”

  “They’d charge us with bribery.”

  “Not if we are very subtle. I, Charles, am always very subtle.”

  “As a sledgehammer. Don’t pout.”

  * * *

  Agatha sat in grim silence until the servant came back with the sleeping pills. Together they got into the rented car.

  “Don’t sulk,” said Charles eventually.

  “I am not sulking.”

  “Suit yourself, sweetie. But this car is fogging up with sulk.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Agatha. “But I don’t like put-downs. Anyway, this might be like the prisoners’ get-together. She tries to poison us while we try to drug her.”

  “Play it by ear. Tell her we’ve come to say good-bye. When she knows we are no longer a threat, you can slip the drug into her coffee.”

  “No, you do it. She’ll be so busy fawning over you, she won’t notice.”

  Sarah Jinks welcomed then with a false enthusiasm which became genuine when they told her they were leaving. “So sorry to lose you. That jug of coffee is a leetle old.” She poured it down the sink. “It’ll only take a moment to make a new one.”

  I wonder if that old one had the poison in, thought Agatha. Now that she thinks we are leaving, she feels she has nothing to fear.

  When cups of coffee had been poured all round, Agatha said, “May I use your toilet? I hope it’s not out in the yard.”

  “No, no. Let me show you.”

  The moment they had both left, Charles put a large slug of sleeping draught into Sarah’s coffee.

  When they came back, Sarah obviously having waited until Agatha had finished in case she walked off somewhere, she fluttered about, of
fering biscuits, sugar and milk. At last, she drank a large gulp of coffee. “This is stuff I brought from dear old Blighty,” she said. “The local brew is horrible. I think they make it out of…” She suddenly slumped forward and Charles caught her head before it banged against the table.

  “Give me that cushion and I’ll make her comfortable.”

  “I hope you haven’t killed her,” said Agatha.

  “Don’t suppose so. Let’s get on with it. Look for keys. Her handbag is on the dresser.”

  Agatha rummaged in the handbag and brought out a ring of keys. “Let’s try her room.”

  They unlocked her bedroom door. It was a sparsely furnished room. A wardrobe held a few coats; a chest of drawers nothing but underwear and socks and sweaters. The bedside table had only one thing in it: a Gideon Bible.

  “I am beginning to feel we’ve been making a terrible mistake and if that woman does not realise we drugged her then she is stupider than she seems,” said Agatha, ripping back the bedclothes. “Oh, how sweet. Her bedtime reading, Lady Veronica’s Fancy. Pah!”

  “We may as well give up,” said Charles, “and later, I will romance her and claim she had a seizure.”

  “She will probably fall for it, thinking she’s Lady Veronica. Wait a moment. My eyes just fell on the blurb. It says that Veronica was being forced into marriage with an evil old man and as she had no money of her own, she could not escape. But the ghost of her mother appeared and told her to look in the chimney and there she found…”

  “The family jewels!” cried Charles.

  They collided on the hearth in their excitement. Charles thrust his arm up the chimney. “Got something.” He pulled and a canvas bag came tumbling down.

  He opened it. It was stuffed to the top with Bank of England notes.

  “We’ve got her,” said Agatha. “I know, you phone the police. I will hide behind the curtains. If they just count out the notes and write down the amount, we are stuck. But if they start to share some of it, we’ve got our passports back.”

  “Okay. But you careful. If it’s that inspector, he’s pretty sharp.”

  * * *

  Two rather slovenly policemen arrived. One seemed to speak good English, explaining that he had relatives in Manchester. Agatha watched them enter the room. Then they turned to Charles and told him to wait downstairs. They crouched over the bag, speaking rapidly in Bulgarian. Agatha taped every word. Then they counted out wads of notes and hid them in their pockets before counting out what, Agatha gathered, would be officially declared. She taped their conversation, wishing they would hurry up, because she was beginning to feel cramped.