M Beaton - A Spoonful of Poison

Agatha opened her handbag and took a twenty-pound note out of her wallet and waved it. The door opened. “I need an extra set of house keys,” said Agatha. “Twenty pounds over the price if you do it now.”

Soon she had the keys copied and hurried back to the office. Jimmy was sitting up, staring blearily around.

Agatha walked towards her desk and knocked his jacket to the floor as she did so. She slipped Jimmy’s keys on top of the jacket and then rounded on him.

“What where you doing sleeping in the office?”

“I had a bit of a bevvy last night,” said Jimmy. “Too many coppers around, so I decided to sleep it off here.”

“You’d better go home and get a bath and then take yourself off to Brighton. It’s the Tropper case. Mrs. Tropper thinks he’s taking his bit of stuff to Brighton. He told her he was there on a sales conference. Check and see.”

Jimmy stood up. “I’ll get off. I’ll need an advance for expenses.”

Agatha unlocked the office safe and took out a wad of notes. “I want you to account for every penny of that.”

“Sure. See you. Bye.”

The rest of Agatha’s staff were all out on jobs. She telephoned each of them to say she had the keys and they all said they would come back in for a council of war. She suggested they meet at the Sorrento Cafe in Mircester so that Mrs. Freedman wouldn’t know what they were up to. She phoned Charles as well, but he said he had to go home to deal with things.

Agatha could only hope and pray that Jimmy would not turn out to be the culprit. Such a scandal would hit the agency hard.

When they were all seated in the cafe, Agatha said, “Toni and I had better go. We’d be less conspicuous.”

“Are you sure?” asked Phil. “I could come along as bodyguard.”

Agatha looked affectionately at Phil’s elderly face and white hair and said, “We’ll be all right. Jimmy’s not going to hurry back from an expenses-paid trip to Brighton.”

Jimmy’s flat turned out to be at the top end of Port Street near the garage above a small grocery store.

They were not wearing any disguises. Agatha had said that she had a good excuse. She could say she had forgotten she had sent Jimmy to Brighton and was checking up on him.

There were two keys on the ring. Agatha correctly guessed that the bigger of the two opened the street door.

Inside, worn stone steps led up to the floor above. “Good,” Agatha whispered. “Only one door. No neighbours.”

She unlocked the door and they both went in. “What a tip!” exclaimed Agatha. Empty beer cans lay about the floor. Empty pizza boxes were piled up on the coffee table. “Oh, well, hold your nose and let’s get started. Try to put everything back the way it was. Here’s a pair of gloves.”

It was only a tiny flat, consisting of one living room, one bedroom and a minuscule kitchen. The bathroom contained a shower so small, Agatha wondered how Jimmy managed to get his bulk into it. They worked steadily, searching cupboards and under the bed, in the bathroom cistern and even making a slit in the side of the mattress in case Jimmy had stuffed the money in there.

Agatha began to feel quite cheerful. She really didn’t want Jimmy to be the culprit. “Give up!” she called to Toni, who was still searching the bedroom. “I’m beat.”

She carefully removed two newspapers from a plump armchair and collapsed into it with a sigh of relief. Then she stiffened and slowly stood up. “Toni, come here!”

“Found anything?” asked Toni, coming through from the bedroom.

“The big seat cushion on that armchair feels as if it’s stuffed with something.”

“Let’s have a look.” Toni picked up the huge seat cushion. “It’s been clumsily stitched up at the back,” she said. “I’ve got a pair of nail scissors in my handbag.”

“If there’s nothing sinister in there, we’re going to have to try to stitch it up again so that it looks the same,” said Agatha.

Toni took the scissors out of her handbag and cut the threads. “There’s something here,” she said. She grabbed hold of the end of something and pulled. Agatha stared. She found herself looking at a familiar bank bag.

“We can just take it,” said Toni eagerly, “and give it back to the church. Fire Jimmy and there’ll be no scandal.”

“Can’t,” said Agatha. “You forget Arnold was murdered. I’ll call the police. I’ll say I had more instructions for Jimmy. He didn’t answer his phone. We came up here and found the door open. No Jimmy. I sat in that armchair and I thought, there’s something in this cushion, and blah, blah, blah.”

“Sounds thin.”

“Got any better ideas?” Agatha took out her phone and called police headquarters in Mircester.

She managed to get hold of Bill Wong and spoke rapidly. When she had finished, Toni said nervously, “Do you think they’ll search us?”

“Probably not. Why?”

“You’ve got the keys and we’ve both got latex gloves.”

“I’ll attach the keys to my own key ring and we’re supposed to carry latex gloves. We’re detectives.”

“This is Evesham. Won’t it be Worcester police?”

“It’s Gloucester’s case. I think they’ll come straight here and let Worcester know afterwards. I feel a bit shaky now. Poor Mrs. Freedman. She’s going to be shattered by this bit of news.”

“I’ve thought of something!” exclaimed Toni.

“What?”

“They’ll automatically search the flat for fingerprints.”

“We were wearing gloves.”

“Don’t you see? That’s it. Why were you wearing gloves?”

“Let me think. I know. We found the money right off because I sat down for a rest. We thought we may as well look round while we were waiting.”

“Won’t work. They’ll know that we’ll know a crime scene shouldn’t be touched.”

“We’ll tell them we wanted to find out where Jimmy was staying in Brighton, if he had left a note somewhere.”

“And they’ll say, ‘Why didn’t you phone him?’”

“Couldn’t get an answer.”

“What if they check your phone records?”

“Snakes and bastards,” howled Agatha. “I’m not the villain here.”

“Mrs. Raisin?” Agatha swung round. Wilkes and Collins were standing in the doorway. Just behind them stood Bill Wong.

“Where is the money?” asked Wilkes.

Agatha pointed to the armchair cushion. “It’s in there.”

“How did you find it? This is Jimmy Wilson’s flat, isn’t it? And he works for you.”

Agatha told her tale of wanting to get in touch with Jimmy, who was in Brighton. She had sat down in the armchair and had felt all the paper inside it and decided to have a look. “So you don’t know where he’s staying?”

“I couldn’t get him on the phone,” said Agatha. “Knowing Jimmy, if he thinks he’s richer than he was, he’ll probably be staying somewhere grand.”

Wilkes spoke rapidly into his phone, ordering someone at headquarters to contact the Brighton police and arrest Jimmy Wilson.

“Why did you employ such a person?”

“He’s an ex-detective. He was one of your lot.”

“I want you and Miss Gilmour to go directly to police headquarters to be interviewed. Detective Sergeant Wong will go with you.”

At police headquarters, Agatha and Toni were split up. Agatha was interviewed by the terrible Collins and another detective called Finch.

The questioning was rapid-fire and bullying. Collins stopped just short of implying that Agatha had been in on the theft of the money and the murder of Arnold.

Grimly, Agatha stuck to her story, reminding Collins time after time that because Jimmy was a retired detective, she had no reason to suspect him.

At last, she was free to go but was warned that she had to be ready for further questioning. She found Toni waiting for her.