by M C Beaton
“Let’s just get out of here before our luck runs out,” said James. “I’m tired of whispering.”
“Will it take ages for you to lock up?”
“No, that’s the easy bit.”
Soon they were walking out of Ancombe, towards their car. “I’ve been thinking,” said James as they drove off, “that we’ve been concentrating on people who were blackmailed or used by Jimmy Raisin. We never really thought of the partners or spouses, except perhaps Lady Derrington. Look at it this way. Mrs. Comfort is upset by our visit, though I don’t know why. Her husband wants her back. But she phones Basil, someone she’s obviously close enough to so that he promptly arranges they head off for Spain, just like that.”
“The police said she hired a car in Madrid. They didn’t say anything about anyone being with her. Of course, this Basil could be married. They could have travelled separately on the plane, she hires the car and picks him up outside the airport. Easy. Oh, God, James, stop the car!”
He screeched to a halt. “What’s up?”
“That call from Basil was the last one. There were only two calls on that answering machine. If that was the very last call she got, we could dial one-four-seven-one and find out this Basil’s phone number.”
“Agatha! That would mean picking those locks again. I daren’t risk it. Look, this Jane female should be easy to find. We’ll go back to Ancombe tomorrow. She’ll probably know who it was.”
“But she might not be a close friend. She might just be some woman who looks after people’s houses and gardens when they’re away. Please, James.”
He set off again. “No, Agatha, absolutely not. Trust me. This Jane will know.”
They found Jane easily enough after inquiring at the church the next morning. The verger told them that Jane Barclay was the lady they were looking for and directed them to her cottage.
Jane Barclay was a powerful, masculine-looking middle-aged woman with cropped grey hair.
It took them only a short time, during which Agatha slid the silk scarf from her neck and put it in her pocket, to establish that Jane Barclay was not an intimate friend of Mrs. Gloria Comfort.
“The real reason we have come,” gushed Agatha, while James looked at her in surprise, “I left my scarf at Gloria’s yesterday. She told me you looked after the garden and the way she talked about you made us believe you were a close friend and might know exactly where in Spain she had gone. But you do have the keys. Could you be an angel and let us in so that I can look for it?”
“I suppose so,” said Jane. “Who did you say you were?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Perth,” said James quickly, before Agatha could say anything. He was frightened that if she heard Agatha’s name, she might be more cautious about letting the wife of a murdered man into that cottage.
“Have you any identification?”
Agatha’s heart sank, but to her amazement James fished a card-case out of his inside pocket and extracted a card.
“Colonel and Mrs. Perth,” Jane read aloud. “From Stratford. She never mentioned you, but then I don’t know her all that well. Come along. Don’t take too long about it.”
They walked with her the short distance to Mrs. Comfort’s cottage. James kept glancing down at Agatha, guessing that she wanted to get to that phone. When they entered the living-room, Agatha looked around brightly. “Now where did I put that scarf. I know I left it here.”
James crossed to the window and looked out. “The dahlias haven’t been damaged by frost yet,” he said. “They make a fine show.”
Jane Barclay crossed to join him. “I planted those,” she said proudly. “Mrs. Comfort – Gloria – really doesn’t know a thing about gardening.”
Agatha took the scarf from her pocket and thrust it down between the cushions of the sofa.
“I’ve found it,” she cried, fishing it out as Jane turned round. “It must have slipped between the cushions.”
James was still at the window. “Some of those roses could do with being cut back.”
“What? Where?” demanded Jane angrily. “Those are the best-tended roses in the Cotswolds. I’ll show you.”
“You go ahead,” said Agatha. “I’ll just powder my nose.”
Jane wasn’t even listening to her. She was too angry at this slur on her gardening capabilities.
When they both walked out, Agatha quickly crossed to the phone and dialled 1471. A tinny voice said, “Telephone number oh-one-five-six-oh-three-eight-nine-nine-three-two has been stored.”
Agatha made a rapid note and then went out to the garden, where James was saying plaintively, “Well, bless me, what a splendid job you’ve done. Forgive me, Miss Barclay. It’s my damned eyesight. Not as good as it was.”
Jane was mollified enough to talk for what seemed to Agatha an unconscionable time about gardening.
At last they thanked Jane and went back to their car. As soon as they were out of earshot, Agatha said excitedly, “I got the number.”
“It may not be this mysterious Basil’s number.” James drove a little way along the road and then stopped. “Let me see it.”
Agatha gave him the slip of paper with the number on it.
“It’s a Mircester number,” said James, “but it could also belong to any of the villages just outside Mircester. How are we going to find out the address that goes with it?”
Agatha sat scowling horribly. “I’ve got an idea,” she said at last. “Any time I’ve been to police headquarters in Mircester to talk to Bill Wong or someone about a case, I’ve been put in an interview room and had to wait ages. The interview room has a phone. I could phone the operator and say I was a police detective, and before they get suspicious say something like, “Phone me back immediately at police headquarters on this extension.””
“Agatha, I forbid you to do anything so insane!”
“You what? Who the hell do you think you are to order me around?”
“See sense, woman. The one time someone will come to see you immediately is just when you don’t want it. The phone will ring and someone like the dreadful Maddie will pick it up and promptly charge you with trying to impersonate a police officer.”
“One has,” said Agatha Raisin haughtily, “got to take risks in this business.”
“Oh, don’t get carried away. All we’ve done so far is create mayhem. I’ll drop you off home. I’m going to the market in Moreton to get fish for dinner. If time lies heavy on your hands, you might try a little weeding, dear. It has not escaped my notice that you treat my place like a hotel.”
“That’s because it is your place,” said Agatha, deeply hurt. “I can’t wait to get my own home back.”
“Can’t wait either,” said James, and they completed the drive home in bitter silence.
James went off to Moreton-in-Marsh and Agatha let herself in, smarting with hurt and fury. So this is what marriage would have been like? Being ordered about? How dare he. Well, she’d show him.
She went back out and got into her own car and drove as fast as she could to Mircester.
Feeling a bit nervous now, she approached the desk sergeant at Mircester Police Headquarters and said sweetly, “I would like to see someone in connection with the murder of Jimmy Raisin.”
“It’s Mrs. Raisin, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
He lifted the flap, came round the desk and ushered her into an interview room off the entrance hall.
“Shouldn’t be long,” he said cheerfully. “Like a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you.”
He left and shut the door. Agatha seized the phone and dialed the operator. Nothing happened. Then she realized she probably had to dial nine for an outside line and, hoping it was nine, tried again. The operator came on the line.
“This is Detective Sergeant Crumb,” said Agatha, quickly taking her alias from the remains of a biscuit on a plate on the desk. She gave the operator the number she had culled from Mrs. Comfort’s phone, asked for the name and address that went w
ith it, and then gave her the number of the extension on the desk.
“We’ll call you back,” said the operator.
And Agatha waited and waited.
Then panic took over. She lifted the phone off the desk and put it on the floor. She seized the desk and pushed it across the floor and rammed it against the door. She had just finished doing that when two things happened at once. Someone tried to get in and the phone rang.
Agatha dropped to her knees on the floor, seized the receiver and muttered hoarsely into it. “Yes?”
“Detective Sergeant Crumb?”
“Yes, yes,” hissed Agatha as she heard Maddie’s voice calling from the other side of the door, “Mrs. Raisin? Are you in there? This door’s jammed.”
“The name and address you require is Basil Morton, number six, The Loanings, London Road, Mircester.”
“Thanks,” said Agatha.
She moved the desk and lay down alongside the door, just as she heard Maddie shouting, “Dave, come and help me with i this door.”
Agatha groaned theatrically. “Are you all right?” Maddie called, her voice more sharp with suspicion than concern.
“I fainted,” called Agatha. “I’ll move. I’m blocking the door.”
She got to her feet and stood back as Maddie, with policeman behind her, opened the door. Maddie’s eyes went Straight to Agatha’s flushed face and then to the phone, which was lying on the floor.
“You don’t look at all like a woman who has just recovered from a faint,” snapped Maddie. “And what’s that phone doing on the floor? And didn’t I hear it ringing?”
“I must have dragged it off the desk when I fell. It only rang a couple of times and then stopped.”
“And it landed right side up with the receiver still in place?”
“Odd, that,” said Agatha. She put her hand to her head. “I feel very hot. Could I have a glass of water?”
“Get it,” Maddie ordered the policeman. “It’s probably a menopausal hot flush.”
Agatha glared at her, hating her.
“So let’s cut the crap, Mrs. Raisin. Why are you here?”
“If that’s your attitude, I think I’d rather speak to Bill.”
“Bill’s out on a job, and either you speak to me or I’ll have you for wasting police time.”
“It’s a wonder you ever solve anything,” said Agatha, “considering the way you put people’s backs up.”
The policeman came in with the glass of water and handed it to Agatha. She took it from him with a murmur of thanks, sat down, and began to drink it thirstily. Maddie watched her crossly and then said, “Out with it, Agatha.”
“Mrs. Raisin to you.” The glass of water had given Agatha time to improvise. She hadn’t prepared a story, thinking that they would surely send Bill to see her.
“I have reason to believe,” she said, “that Help Our Homeless was a scam and not a properly organized charity.”
“We know that,” said Maddie to Agatha’s amazement. “The police went to close the place down in ninety-one, but the office was closed and the Gore-Appleton woman had disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why should I?” Maddie was barely able to conceal her contempt. “The trouble with you women who don’t work is you’re always poking your nose into other people’s affairs. You’ve been told and told to leave matters to the police. I’ll tell you something else. I think you were using that phone. Let’s just try the call-back number and see what you were up to.”
Agatha thought quickly. Maddie would only get that operator number. But she would ask everyone in the station if anyone had dialled the operator from the number in the interview room and find that no one had. Then, Agatha worried, she would phone the operator and find out what the inquiry had been about. But just at that moment, the phone rang.
Maddie picked it up. “Hallo, Bill,” she said crossly. “Are you back in the building? You’re not? You’re phoning from outside.” Bill’s voice at the other end quacked busily. “Well, listen to this,” said Maddie. “Your darling Mrs. Raisin is in the interview room and I think she was using this phone and I was about to get the call-back to tell me who it was phoned her, but because you found out I was in the interview room and decided to get through on an outside line, I can’t find out now. Why didn’t you just let the switchboard put yotl through?”
The voice quacked again. It was obvious to Agatha that Bill was explaining that whatever he had to say to Maddie he hadn’t wanted to be overheard by the switchboard, because Maddie said, “This is neither the time nor place, and if you want to know the truth, there never is going to be a time and place…ever. Geddit?”
She slammed the phone down and said to Agatha, “Get out of here.”
And Agatha went, gladly.
James was too curious about this new information to be angry with Agatha. In fact, he seemed to find her story about the desk and the manufactured faint amusing.
“Roy Silver phoned when you were out,” he said “That secretary, Helen Warwick, the one Derrington was having the affair with, is back. I have the address. Want to go up to London today?”
“Can we leave it tomorrow?” pleaded Agatha. “I’ve got to go to Cheltenham with the awful Hardy woman and sort out the house sale.”
“Are you driving her or is she driving you?”
“Neither. She’s meeting me there.”
“Do you want me to come with you in case she tries to put the price up again?”
“She wouldn’t!”
“She might. She’s a tough customer.”
“I hate her,” said Agatha passionately. “I hate her almost as much as I hate that Maddie Hurd. What Bill ever saw in her is beyond me. What a bitch! And we’ve got Basil to check out.”
“You go and see to getting your home back and we’ll drive over to Mircester afterwards and see what we can find out about Basil.”
“And there’s the husband, Geoffrey Comfort of the Potato Plus. What is Potato Plus anyway?”
“It’s a small factory where they put potatoes in plastic bags for the supermarkets. But his home number is in the book. Guess where he lives?”
“Here? Carsely?”
“No, Ashton-Le-Walls, same place as the late Miss Purvey. Off you go.”
Agatha found Mrs. Hardy waiting for her in the lawyer’s office in Montpelier Terrace in Cheltenham.
Agatha had paid £110,000 for the cottage and had sold it to Mrs. Hardy for £120,000. Mrs. Hardy was asking £130,000, a ridiculous price, thought Agatha, now that the market had slumped.
Agatha was about to sign the papers when the price of £150,000 seemed to leap off the page at her.
“What’s this?” she snapped.
“The price?” The lawyer smiled. “Mrs. Hardy said that was the price agreed on.”
“What the hell are the pair of you up to?” snarled Agatha. She rounded on the lawyer. “You agree to the price of one hundred and thirty thousand on the phone!”
“Well, Mrs. Hardy seems to think one hundred and fifty thousand a fair price.”
Agatha gathered up her handbag and gloves. “You can get stuffed, the pair of you. I’ll tell you what my figure is now – one hundred and ten thousand pounds. Take it or leave it.”
She marched out of the office.
Oh, my home, she mourned as she got in her car. I’d better give it up. Fd better find another cottage in another village and get away from James entirely and get my life back. The world is full of other men.
But when she walked into James’s cottage and he looked up and smiled at her, she felt her heart turn over and wondered if she would ever really be free of the feelings she had for him.
She told him what had happened and James said mildly, “There are other cottages, you know. Let’s have an early dinner and go to Mircester.”
The Loanings, where Basil Morton lived, was a builder’s development, rather like the one where the Wong family had 1 their house. It was like a council
estate, the only difference that Agatha could see being that the houses were slightly larger and the gardens well tended.
They rang the doorbell, not expecting a reply, but using it as a preliminary to calling on the neighbours and asking where their ‘friend’, Basil, had got to. To their surprise, the door was answered by a thin, dark-haired woman. At first they thought she was a girl because she was wearing a short navy skirt and white blouse, almost like a school uniform, and her hair was braided into two plaits. But when she switched on the overhead light over the door, they saw the fine wrinkles around her eyes and judged her to be in her late thirties.
“May we speak to Mr. Morton?” asked James.
“Basil’s away abroad on business. He’s often away.” Loneliness shone in the dark eyes. “Won’t you come in?”
They followed her into a living-room, which was almost frightening in its sterile cleanliness. There were no books or magazines lying about. “How long have you lived here?” asked Agatha, looking around her.
“Ten years.”
And not a scuff-mark or stain or wear anywhere, marvelled Agatha. Can’t be any children.
“Sherry?”
“Yes, please.”
“Then please sit down.”
She knelt down in front of a sideboard which shone and gleamed from frequent polishing and took out a crystal decanter, then three crystal glasses and a small silver tray. She put the tray on the carpet and placed glasses and decanter on it.
“Allow me.” James carried the tray and its contents to a low coffee-table, which also shone and gleamed like glass.
How terrifying, thought Agatha. Doesn’t she ever spill anything?
The woman poured out three glasses of what turned out to be very sweet sherry, probably British sherry, thought James, wrinkling his nose as he sniffed it.
“Did you want to see Basil about business?”
“No, Mrs____ er…Morton?”
“That’s me.”
“We just wanted to talk to him about a personal matter,” said James.
“He’s gone abroad. Spain. He often travels.”
