by M C Beaton
“What is his business, Mrs. Morton?”
“Bathrooms. Morton’s Bathrooms, that’s the company.”
“Why Spain?”
“He buys tiles there,” she said vaguely. “To be honest, I don’t really know anything about the business. I have so much to do here, and I’m so tired when Basil gets home that I usually fall asleep.”
“Do you work at home?” asked James.
She gave a little laugh and one thin hand waved to take i in the gleaming living-room. “Housekeeping. It never ends. You must find that, Mrs…?”
“Call me Agatha. I get a woman to clean. I’m not very good at housekeeping.”
“Oh, but you’ve got to keep on top of it. It’s the least one can do for a hard-working husband. I like my Basil to have his little nest to come home to…when he does come home,” she added wistfully.
James drained his glass with a little grimace and signalled with his eyes to Agatha.
“Well, we must be on our way, Mrs. Morton. We have other calls to make.”
“Oh, must you go? Just a little more sherry?”
“No, really. You’re very kind.”
“Who shall I say called?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Perth.”
“And what else could we ask?” said James as they drove off. “We could hardly tell that poor neurotic house-cleaner that her husband has gone off to Spain with another woman.”
“What now?” asked Agatha.
“Mr. Comfort, I think. Ashton-Le-Walls again, and wouldn’t you know it. The fog is back.”
“Are we going to tell this Mr. Comfort our real names?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Why did we waste time going to see Basil?”
“Well, we didn’t go to see him because we know he’s out of the country. I was going to ask the neighbours about him. Funny, I didn’t think for a moment that he would be married.”
“I suppose if we had been kind, we should have broken it to her,” said Agatha slowly. “I think the police will check up and they’ll tell her. Oh dear, all that cleaning and polishing in the name of love. He’s probably spitting on the floor of his hotel room and leaving rings from his wineglasses on the bedside table.”
“Just look at that bloody fog.” James rubbed at the windscreen with a gloved hand. They had left the dual carriageway and were inching through the fog towards Ashton-Le-Walls.
“What are we going to ask him? Oh, look out!” screamed Agatha as a badger loomed up in the headlights. James braked and the badger shambled off into the hedge.
“I don’t know,” said James testily. “For God’s sake.” He had moved off again, only to brake savagely once more as a deer leaped through the fog in front of them. “Why don’t those bloody animals stay warm and comfortable instead of wandering about on a filthy night like this? Mr. Comfort? We’ll play it by ear. He may not even be home. Or we may find ourselves faced with the second Mrs. Comfort.”
Geoffrey Comfort lived in a large manor-house on the outskirts of the village. “You’d never think there was all that amount of money in putting potatoes in plastic bags,” marvelled Agatha. “I’m beginning to think I’ve spent my life in the wrong trade.”
“Place looks deserted,” muttered James, peering through the fog. “No, wait a bit. There’s a chink of light through the downstairs curtains.”
They parked the car and approached the house and rang the bell.
They waited and waited. “Probably left the light on because of burglars,” Agatha was beginning, when the door suddenly opened and a middle-aged man stood there, peering at them. He was very fat and round, rather like a potato himself, one of those potatoes washed and bagged for the supermarkets. To add to the impression, his fat face was lightly tanned and he had two black moles on his face, like the eyes of a potato.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Comfort?”
“Yes.”
“I am James Lacey and this is Mrs. Agatha Raisin.”
“So?”
“Mrs. Raisin’s husband was murdered recently. He stayed at a health farm at the same time as your wife.”
“Fuck off!” The heavy door was slammed in their faces.
“What do we do now?” asked Agatha.
“We go to the nearest pub and eat and drink, that’s what we do. We can’t very well ring the bell again and demand he speaks to us.”
A window opened and Mr. Comfort’s round head ap peared. “And bugger off fast or I’ll let the dog out.”
“There’s your answer. In the car, quick, Agatha.”
They sped off, James swerving in the drive to avoid a pheasant. “What’s that stupid bird doing awake? Why isn’t it up in the trees with the rest of the birds? Why has the whol damned countryside turned suicidal?”
“I could do with a bucket of gin,” said Agatha gloomily. “Pity you’re driving.”
“Never mind. I’ll drink just short of any breathalyser test. I’m-more interested in food.”
They found the village pub, called quaintly the Tapestry Arms. A menu was chalked up on a blackboard beside the bar James read it aloud. “Jumbo sausage and chips, curried chicken and chips, lasagne and chips, fish and chips, and ploughman’s.”
“Should we try somewhere else?”
“Not in this fog. Let’s try a couple of ploughman’s am hope for the best.”
The ploughman’s turned out to be rather dry French bread with a minuscule runny pat of butter and a wedge of Cheddar-type cheese which looked for all the world like an old-fashioned slab of carbolic soap.
Agatha’s gin and tonic was warm, the pub having run out of ice.
Bands of fog lay across the room. Agatha thrust away her half-eaten food and lit a cigarette. “Don’t glare at me, James. With all this fog about, my cigarette smoke won’t make much difference.”
“So you think the Hardy woman will accept your offer?” he asked.
“No, I don’t. I think I’m going to have to pay her what she wants. I know it’s silly and I know I could get somewhere else quite close, but I want my own place. Did you notice the garden when we were going in to her place? Weeds everywhere. Why do people live in the countryside if they don’t like living things?” demanded Agatha piously. She wrinkled her nose at her warm gin and tipped it into a rubber plant which was standing on a shelf near her table.
“I gather you don’t want to try another of those?”
“No, thank you. And I don’t like warm beer either’. ‘Then we may as well face a foggy journey home.” They went outside. The fog had lifted and a fresh wind was blowing. A little moon raced through the clouds above their heads. A shower of beech-nuts fell on Agatha’s head. “More nuts!”
“They’re poisonous,” said James. “Poisonous to sheep and cattle. Don’t seem to affect the squirrels.”
When they reached home, James said wearily, “I feel we are going round and round and not getting anywhere. The police have all the resources – to check histories, alibis, and bank accounts. Do you think it is really worth going to London tomorrow to see this secretary?”
“Of course.” Agatha was now frightened that if they stopped their investigations, James would take off for foreign parts again. “You’ll feel better about it all in the morning.”
Helen Warwick was not at the Houses of Parliament but at her flat in a Victorian block in the Gloucester Road in Kensington. When she answered the door, Agatha could not believe at first that this lady could have been Sir Desmond’s mistress. She was plump and placid, with light grey eyes and brown hair worn in an old-fashioned French pleat. She was wearing a tailored silk blouse and tweed skirt, sensible brogues, and no make-up. James judged her to be in her forties.
James explained, correctly this time, who they were and why they had come. “You’d better come in,” she said.
The flat was large, rather dark, but very comfortable, with a fire burning brightly in the living-room. There was a large bowl of autumn leaves and chrysanthemums on a polished table by the
window. The sofa and chairs had feather cushions. A good Victorian English landscape hung over the fireplace. It looked as if Miss Warwick had money and had probably always been well-off.
“I was shocked when I learned of Desmond’s death,” said Helen. “We were great friends. He was always so kind and courteous. I’m sorry his wife had to find out in such a dreadful way. What’s all this about blackmail?”
So they told her all about Jimmy Raisin and Mrs. Gore-Appleton. “I remember them,” said Helen. “No, they didn’t try to blackmail me. I’m the sort that would have gone straight to the police and they probably knew that. I didn’t like them one bit. How they found out my real identity I do not know.”
“They probably looked in your handbag,” said Agatha.
“And saw the different name on my credit cards? I suppose so. Horrible people. In fact, now that I come to think of it, I can almost pin-point the day they found out.”
“Tell us about them,” said Agatha eagerly. “Everyone else we’ve asked seems vague, even someone who slept with Jimmy.”
“Let me see…would you both like coffee?”
“No, thank you,” said James, anxious to hear what she had to say and frightened that if she went into the kitchen, she might change her mind about talking to them.
“Desmond and I joked about health farms at first. We weren’t really interested in our health. We thought it might be an amusing place to get together. His wife might have found a visit to a hotel suspicious but Desmond had told her he was worried about his blood pressure. Jimmy Raisin was a wreck. We arrived on the same day. He was still stinking of booze, but after only a couple of days, he looked like a changed man. He was always oiling around us, my-ladying me to death and claiming to know all sorts of celebrities. He was the sort of man who calls celebs by their first name. He kept talking about his good friend, Tony, who had won an Oscar, and it turned out to be Anthony Hopkins. I don’t suppose he even knew him. Mrs. Gore-Appleton was not much better. She was – what is it the Americans say? – in my face. She had an abrasive manner overlaid with syrup. You know, she paid me effusive compliments while all the time her sharp eyes watched me to see if I was swallowing any of it. Desmond finally told them we wanted some time to ourselves. The day after that – that would be about five days after we arrived – they began to throw us very knowing looks and then pass our table and give contemptuous laughs. I thought it was because Desmond had snubbed them. But they must have found out I wasn’t Lady Derrington. What else can I tell you? I thought Jimmy Raisin was a wide boy, what they used to call a spiv. There was something seedy about him. I gathered from the newspapers that you had not seen him in a very long time, Mrs. Raisin. The Gore-Appleton woman was blonde and muscular, tried to be very pukka, but there was something all wrong about her. I tell you what. Let me get us all some coffee and I’ll think some more.”
Agatha and James waited until she returned with a tray. There was not only coffee but home-made toasted tea-cakes. “Did you really make these yourself?” James took another appreciative bite. “These are excellent and the coffee is divine.” He stretched out his long legs. “It’s very comfortable here.”
Helen gave him a slow smile. “Come when you’re in town and have a free hour to spare.”
Agatha stiffened. This wretched woman suddenly seemed like more competition than any blonde sylph. She was suddenly anxious to get James away.
But Helen was talking again. “You say he slept with some woman?” She laughed. “I love that euphemism, “slept with.” One does anything but.” She gave a warm creamy laugh and Agatha’s bearlike eyes fastened on her with barely concealed hate.
“That would be a Mrs. Comfort, am I right?”
“How did you know?” said James.
“Oh, he was making up to her and the Gore-Appleton woman was egging him on. I heard him say, “I’ll get her tonight,” and Mrs. Gore-Appleton laughed and said, “Have fun,” and the next morning, well, body language and all that, you know what I mean, don’t you, James?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
I’ll kill this bitch, thought Agatha.
“And that poor spinster lady, she was murdered,” said Helen with an artistic shudder. “More coffee, James?”
Her tailored silk blouse had a deep V and she leaned forward, deliberately, Agatha thought, to reach for the coffeepot at such an angle that James could see two excellent breasts encased in a frilly brassiere.
James had another full cup of coffee and was helping himself to another tea-cake. Agatha groaned inwardly.
Helen suddenly looked at her. “I remember now. You and Mr. Lacey here were to be married but Jimmy turned up at your wedding.” She laughed again. “That must have been quite a scene. You’ll be able to marry now.”
“Yes,” said Agatha.
“We haven’t made any plans,” said James.
There was an awkward silence. “We should go,” said Agatha harshly. “Could you just wait until I finish my coffee, dear?”
Agatha, who had half-risen, sat down again. “Lacey, Lacey,” Helen was saying. “Are you any relative of Major-General Robert Lacey?”
“My father. He died some time ago’. ‘Oh, then you must know…” And what followed was the sort of conversation Agatha dreaded, James and Helen animatedly talking about people she did not know.
At last, when Agatha felt she could not stand another moment without screaming, James got to his feet with obvious reluctance.
They took their leave, Agatha first, muttering a grumpy thanks, James after her, stopping to kiss Helen on the cheek and promising to see her again, giving her his card and taking one of hers.
Agatha fumed the whole way back to Carsely. She complained bitterly about harpies who sponged off men instead of going out to work. James tried to point out that as a secretary to a Member of Parliament, Helen did go out to work, but that only seemed to make Agatha worse. He left her at the cottage, saying he had to see someone, whereupon Agatha tortured herself with mad jealousy, imagining him driving back to London to spend the night with Helen. She finally went to bed and tried to read, listening all the while for the sound of his key in the door. At last, just after midnight, she heard him return, heard him come upstairs and go into the bathroom, heard him wash, heard him go to his own room without coming in to say good night to her, although he could surely see the light shining under her door.
She raised her head and banged her pillow with her fist, put out the light, and tried to compose herself for sleep. But sleep would not come as she tossed and turned, tormenting j herself with pictures of a world out there full of women all too j ready to snatch James away from her.
And then she stiffened. She heard a furtive noise from somewhere downstairs and then the clack of the letter-box, then a sound like water being poured. She pulled on her dressing-gown and ran down the stairs. She opened the door to the hall as a gloved hand threw a lighted match through the letter-box. In that instant Agatha leaped back into the living-room and screamed, “James!” just as a sheet of flame reached i out for her.
He came hurtling down the stairs. “We’re on fire,” j shouted Agatha. She made to open the door again but he; pulled her back.
“Go up to the bathroom and pour buckets of water on i the floor. It’s over the hall. We’ve got to stop the fire getting to the thatch!”
James ran to the kitchen as Agatha scampered up the stairs. Swearing, he filled a bucket of water and running back with it, hurled the contents at the living-room door, which was already beginning to blister and crackle.
Upstairs, Agatha, sobbing with fright, poured water on the bathroom floor. There were shouts and yells from outside. Agatha clearly heard the voice of the landlord, John Fletcher, calling, “Keep throwing that earth. We daren’t wait for the fire brigade. Oh, Mrs. Hardy. More earth. Let’s be having it! That there’s a petrol fire. I can smell it.”
Then, just as James shouted up, “It’s all right now, Agatha,” she heard the sirens of police cars and the fi
re engine in the distance. She went slowly down the stairs and sat on the bottom steps with her head in her hands.
The living-room door now stood open to reveal the black and smouldering wreck of the little hall, piled high with a mound of earth.
“Who would do a thing like this?” demanded James. “Someone meant to roast us alive.”
“Probably Helen Warwick,” said Agatha, and burst into tears.
SEVEN
SUDDENLY the house seemed to be full of people.
Fred Griggs, the policeman; Mrs. Bloxby, with a sweater and trousers pulled on over her pyjamas; John Fletcher, the publican; Mrs. Hardy; and various other villagers.
“You’ve got Mrs. Hardy here to thank for quick action,” said Fred. “She phoned the fire brigade and then ran with buckets of earth to put on the fire. Water don’t do much to stop a petrol fire.”
“Are you all right, Mrs. Raisin?” Mrs. Hardy’s normally bad-tempered face registered concern.
“Bit shaken,” said Agatha.
“Who could have done such a thing?”
Agatha shuddered and wrapped her arms closely about herself. “I just don’t know.”
By the time the police arrived and then Bill Wong, and two other detectives Agatha did not know, the Carsely Ladies’ Society had commandeered the kitchen and were making tea for all. Agatha was being fussed over and handed home-made cakes. John Fletcher had brought a case of beer along from the pub and was serving out drinks to the men. James was looking around the crowded cottage in a bemused way and wondering whether to put on some music and make a party of it.
But the police cleared everyone out after having heard a report from the fire chief, and the detectives settled down to interview Agatha and James.
“You’ve been putting that stick of yours in muddy waters and stirring things up,” Bill accused Agatha. “Who did you go to see today?” He glanced at the clock. “Or rather, yesterday.”
James flashed Agatha a warning glance, but Agatha said, “Helen Warwick.”
“What! That secretary who was having an affair with Sir Desmond Derrington? I told you pair not to interfere!”
