by M C Beaton
In the dim light from the moon above, they saw with horror that a man was confronting them, a masked man who was holding a pistol.
“This is a warning,” he grated. “Bug out. And just to make sure you know I mean business…”
The pistol was lowered to point at Agatha’s legs.
For one split second they stood paralysed, then Mrs. Hardy’s foot shot out like that of a karate expert and she kicked the gun out of the man’s hand. He turned and fled. Mrs. Hardy went plunging after him, but tripped and fell headlong, blocking James’s pursuit. He tripped over her and sprawled in the lane.
Agatha found her voice and began to scream for help.
More police interviews. Agatha, white and shaking, was somehow more upset to learn that the gun was a replica. Mrs. Hardy was told she had been very brave but very foolish. It could have been a real gun.
“Where did you learn to kick like that?” asked Bill Wong.
Mrs. Hardy laughed. “From those Kung Fu films on television. I suppose it was a silly thing to do – it was just an accident that I managed to kick the gun out of his hand.”
“Remember,” cautioned Bill, “that if that gun had been real and had been loaded, it could have gone off.”
“Well, I think she was very brave,” said Agatha, clutching a cup of hot sweet tea.
While James and Mrs. Hardy were being questioned again – what had the man’s voice sounded like, what height, clothes? – Agatha began to think of Helen Warwick. They had gone to see Helen and then James’s house had been set on fire, and now this.
There must be some connection.
But when the police had left to join the milling hordes of other police combing the area – armed police, police with dogs, and police with helicopters – and when Mrs. Hardy had finally gone to her cottage, Agatha broached her suspicions of Helen Warwick to James. He shrugged and said, “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous!” cried Agatha.
“You’ve had a bad fright,” said James soothingly. “I’ve got to go to London tomorrow to see an old friend. I suggest you have a day in bed to recover. No, not another word. You’re not in a fit state to think properly.”
Agatha awoke at nine to find the cottage empty and James’s car gone. She was suddenly angry. Damn it, she would go to London herself and ask Roy Silver if he had found out anything else from that detective.
The doorbell rang. She ran to answer it, hoping James had come back. But it was the vicar’s wife who stood on the step.
“Oh, Mrs. Bloxby. Come in. I was just about to leave for London.”
“I keep telling you to call me Margaret. And shouldn’t you be resting?”
“Have they caught anyone?” asked Agatha over her shoulder as she led the way through to the kitchen.
“Not a sign. They’re still searching. The woods above the village are full of men and dogs. Was the man wearing gloves?”
“I think so. Why?”
“Well, fingerprints.”
Agatha seized the coffee-jug from the machine. Her hand suddenly shook and she dropped the coffee-jug, which did not break but bounced across the floor, spreading coffee and spattering the cupboards. Agatha sat down and burst into tears.
“Now, then,” said Mrs. Bloxby, guiding her to the table. “You just sit down there and I’ll clean up this mess.”
“J-James is so-so persnickety,” sobbed Agatha. “He’ll be furious.”
“By the time I’ve finished,” said the vicar’s wife, taking off her coat, “he won’t know anything has happened.”
She opened the cupboard under the sink and took out cleaning materials and a floor-cloth. While Agatha sniffed dismally into a handkerchief, Mrs. Bloxby worked calmly and efficiently. Then she put on the kettle, saying, “I think tea would be better for you. Your nerves are bad enough. I am surprised James has left. Why?”
“He said he had to see an old friend.” Agatha, who had temporarily got a grip on herself, found she was beginning to cry again. “But I don’t think he’s gone to see any old friend, I think he’s gone to see that murderess, Helen Warwick.”
“I’ll make us a cup of tea and you can tell me about it.”
When they were both seated at the table, Agatha described the visit to Helen Warwick and how, after that visit, someone had tried to burn them to death, and then, last night, the masked man had been about to shoot her in the legs if Mrs. Hardy had not kicked the gun out of his hand.
“I heard about that last night. Very brave of Mrs. Hardy. But it all goes to show, Agatha, that your Christian act in taking her to the village dance had its reward. It always reinforces my belief in the fundamental goodness of people in the way that a little bit of kindness engenders such a reward.”
Agatha managed a watery smile. “Doesn’t seem to work with the Boggles.”
“Oh, them, well…There is always an exception. But surely James’s interest in Helen Warwick is simply to do with the case?”
“James has quite dreadful taste in women,” said Agatha gloomily. “Remember Mary Fortune?” Mary Fortune, a divorcee who had been murdered, had enjoyed a brief affair with James before her death.
“You were away then,” pointed out Mrs. Bloxby. “Have there been any reporters, asking questions?”
“About the attempted shooting? No. I think the police want the press out of their hair and that they have somehow managed to keep it quiet for the moment. The villagers are tired of the press as well, so none of them is going to phone up a newspaper. I’ll go to London and see if Roy Silver has found out anything. I’ve something in mind. I may stay the night. I’d best leave a note for James.”
“Hadn’t you better stick around? The police will surely be back to see you.”
“They can talk to the Hardy woman. I want a change of scene anyway.”
“I do feel you should take care, Agatha. Someone appears to be more afraid of your investigations than they are of the police.”
“I’m beginning to think that someone is mad. Look, it was a man who held us up last night. Mrs. Comfort said something about Mrs. Gore-Appleton looking like a man. Perhaps there never was a Mrs. Gore-Appleton. Perhaps there was a Mr. Gore-Appleton. Perhaps some man pretended to be a woman as part of that charity scam.”
“I still think you should stay here and rest, Agatha.”
“No, I’m going. I’ll feel better once I’m out of the village.” But Agatha forgot to leave a note for James.
But once she reached London, Agatha found herself driving towards Kensington, to the Gloucester Road. She had to reassure herself that James had really gone to see a friend and that the friend wasn’t Helen Warwick. As she drove along the Gloucester Road towards the block of flats, she kept looking at the parked cars. Of course, James could be parked anywhere. It was difficult to find a parking-place in Kensington at the best of times. His car could be tucked away in Cromwell Gardens or Emperor’s Gate or somewhere she could not see it. But suddenly, there it was, on a meter, a few yards from Helen’s building. And as a final nail in Agatha’s coffin, there, just leaving the flats, came James and Helen, laughing and talking like old friends. The car behind Agatha, who had been driving at about five miles an hour, hooted impatiently. Agatha speeded up. She longed to turn the car around, catch up with them and hurl abuse at James from the window.
But she drove along Palace Gate instead, made a left at Kensington Gardens and headed over to the City.
Roy was in his office. He backed away behind his desk when he saw the grim look on Agatha’s face. “What have you been up to, sweetie?”
Agatha told him all about the fire, the attempted shooting, and their investigations. Roy visibly relaxed, assuming that all this mayhem was the reason for Agatha’s angry face and not anything to do with himself.
“Perhaps it’s that Hardy woman after all,” he said when Agatha had finished. “She turned up out of nowhere to live in Carsely. What if she’s really Mrs. Gore-Appleton? I mean, coincidences happen the whole tim
e. Lots of people move to the Cotswolds and find themselves living next to someone they’ve been trying to avoid all their lives. So how’s this? She takes your cottage. The fact that your name is Raisin and you’re probably Jimmy’s wife amuses her. It’s not all that usual a name. She knows about your proposed wedding to James but thinks you must be divorced. Jimmy may not even have mentioned you. Then, in his fumbling, drunken wanderings, he runs into her, recognizes her as his old buddy and tries to put the screws on her. She bumps him off. Then she goes to that cinema in Mircester and there, in the cinema, she sees Miss Purvey and, what is worse, Miss Purvey sees her, so Miss Purvey must be silenced…
“Now she’s running scared. She tries to burn the pair of you to death, but some neighbour starts screaming, ‘Fire!’ and she sees your light upstairs and hears you shouting, ‘James!’ or something and decides, as you are not going to die, she’d better start heaving buckets of earth around to make sure she’s not suspected. Then she thinks up a scheme to throw you off the scent. She hires some actor or villain to stage that hold-up and give you a fright and at the same time she can figure as the heroine of the piece, and who’s going to suspect a heroine?”
“That’s very clever, Roy, and I wish it could stand up, but the fact is James and I went into her cottage – I’ve still got the keys – and we went through her papers and she is exactly who she says she is.”
“Damn.”
“Your detective seems to have a touch with the down-and-outs that the police lack.”
“The problem with Iris is that she’s very busy at the moment. She’s overworked. She’s got at least a couple of battered wives on her books.”
“See if you can get her. I’ll pay her.” Agatha walked to the window and stared out unseeing at the jumble of City roofs and spires.
Then she swung round. “I know, we’ll go and see what we can find out.”
“We, Paleface? I’ve a job to do here, remember?”
The door opened and Bunty, Agatha’s former secretary, popped her head round the door. “Oh, hallo, Mrs. R. Roy, Mr. Wilson wants to see you.”
“I’ll wait for you,” said Agatha.
Roy went off, straightening his garish tie and wondering whether it was too gaudy for a rising young executive.
Mr. Wilson surveyed Roy for a few moments and then said, “You’ve got the Raisin woman there.”
“Just dropped by for a chat.”
“That one never drops by for a chat. What does she want? To wring your neck for having buggered up her love-life?”
“No, she wants my help. She’s crazy. She wants us to go among the down-and-outs and find out more about her husband’s background.”
“Then do it.”
“What?”
“I said, do it. Agatha Raisin may be the nastiest, most ball-breaking woman I have ever come across, but she’s the best PR in the business and I would like her on the payroll. I want you to be very nice to her. I want you to point out to her that since she retired, her life has been nothing but stress and murder down in that village. Hint that there’s a good amount of money to be made. Put her in your debt.”
“But I’ve got a meeting with Allied Soaps this afternoon.”
“Patterson can take that. Off with you, and keep the old girl sweet.”
Roy trailed miserably back to his office. Allied Soaps was an important account and Patterson would dearly like to get his hands on it. Life just wasn’t fair.
He opened the door of his office and pinned a resolute smile on his face. “Guess what? I’ve got a slow day, so we can go.”
Agatha looked at him suspiciously. “What did Wilson want with you? Not trying to get me back on the payroll?”
“No, no.” Roy knew that if he told Agatha that was the only reason he was going to help her, it would alienate her for all time.
“Well, we’d better get some old clothes and look the part.”
“Do we have to dress up?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll go and find the right stuff. See you back here in about an hour.”
Some time later, two shabby individuals stood outside Ped-mans in Cheapside and tried to flag down a cab. Agatha had gone to an Oxfam shop for the clothes they were now wearing. Roy was dressed in jeans which Agatha had ripped at the knees for him, a denim shirt, and an old tweed jacket. Agatha was wearing a long floral skirt and two lumpy cardigans over j a blouse and carrying various plastic bags. Both stank of j methylated spirits, Agatha having doused their clothes liberally in the stuff. She had also dirtied their faces.
“This is no good,” said Roy as the third empty cab sailed by them without stopping. Agatha went back into Pedmans and hailed the commissionaire.
“What d’ye want?” he growled.
“It’s me, Agatha Raisin,” she snapped. “Get out there and get a cab for me.”
The commissionaire, who loathed Agatha, stared down at her, a smile breaking across his face. So the old bag had fallen on hard times. Let her get her own bloody cab.
“Shove off,” he said. “We don’t want the likes of you in here.”
Agatha opened her mouth to blast him, but a quiet voice behind the commissionaire said, “Jock, get Mrs. Raisin a cab, and hop to it.”
Mr. Wilson stood there. “Going off to a fancy dress party, Mrs. Raisin?”
“That’s it,” said Agatha.
Jock ran out into the street and flagged down a cab, and with his face averted held the door open for Agatha and Roy. Agatha pressed something into his hand. He touched his hat. The cab rolled off. Jock opened his hand. A penny! He hurled it into the gutter and stumped back inside.
“You haven’t brought your handbag?” asked Roy.
“No, I left it with your secretary. It’s in her desk. You left your wallet, I hope?”
“Yes, but who’s paying for this cab?”
“You are!”
“But I left all my money behind!”
“So did 1.1 mean, I’ve got about a pound in change, but that won’t pay for this cab to Waterloo.”
“What are we going to do?” wailed Roy. “Of all the stupid – ”
“Let’s just hope it’s not one of those cabs where they lock the doors.” The cab slowed and stopped at traffic lights.
“Now!” said Agatha.
She wrenched open the door and, followed by Roy, dived out into the street, pursued by the outraged howls of the cabby.
“You can still run,” panted Roy when they finally came to a halt. Agatha clutched her side. “I’ve got a pain. I really must get back into condition.”
They started to walk, an aroma of methylated spirits floating out from them. “I think we had better do some begging,” said Agatha, stopping in the middle of London Bridge.
“We don’t look appealing enough. We need a dog or a child.”
“We haven’t got one. Can’t you sing or something?”
“Nobody would hear a note with this traffic noise. Beg- i gars who get money are either pathetic or threatening.”
“Okay.” Agatha stepped in front of a business man and held out her hand. “Money for food,” she said. “Or else.”
He stopped and looked her up and down.
“Or else what?”
“Or else I’ll hit you with my bottle.”
“Get lost, or I’ll call the police, you scum. It’s layabouts like you that are bringing this country to its knees. You’re too old to work, but you should get your son to support you.”
Roy giggled maliciously.
The business man appealed to the passers-by. “Can you believe this? They’re demanding money with menaces.”
“Come on, Aggie,” pleaded Roy, getting frightened, as a crowd started to collect. “Police!” a woman started to shout. “Police!”
They took to their heels and ran again, thumping their way over the bridge until they had left the crowd behind.
“All this running, birdbrain,” snarled Agatha. “We should have run back to the office and got some money.”
<
br /> “Not far now,” said Roy. “Let’s get it over with.”
Dusk was falling. The roar of the going-home traffic drummed in their ears. Agatha thought of James and wondered what he was doing.
James was feeling guilty. He had taken Helen Warwick out for lunch and then gone back to her flat at her suggestion for coffee. She had a day off, she had explained. Life was quiet when the House wasn’t sitting.
Perhaps because she had really nothing more to tell him than she had already told to James and Agatha, perhaps be-cause she did not seem nearly as charming as she had when he had first met her, James was able to realize that this visit had been prompted more by a desire not to let Agatha dominate his life than by any real interest in Helen. She was very clever at extracting information, and the information she seemed most interested in was the size of his bank balance. No question was direct or vulgar. Talk of stocks and shares, whether he had suffered over the Lloyd’s or Barings disasters, things like that. And the friends they were supposed to have in common began to seem to James like people she had met at parties and in the course of her work but did not really know very well.
“Do you mind if I make a telephone call?” he said at last. “And then I really must go.”
“Help yourself.”
He dialed home and let it ring for a long time.
“No reply,” he said with a rueful smile.
“Were you trying to get Mrs. Raisin?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, she’s in town.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw her driving past when we walked out for lunch.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was just about to, but you were talking about something and then the whole matter slipped my mind.”
Now James felt like a guilty husband who had been caught out in an adulterous act. He then became angry because he was sure Agatha had come to town for no other purpose but to spy on him.
“I’d better go. Thanks for the coffee.”
“Oh, do stay,” said Helen. “I’ve nothing planned for this evening.”
