M Beaton - Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

They emerged into the garden and sat down on the grass. Charles took out his mobile phone and called the police while Agatha hugged her knees and shivered.

“Gloves,” she said when Charles rang off. “It looks criminal, us wearing gloves.”

“I’m not going back there to put fingerprints on the trapdoor. I am wearing an ordinary pair of gloves. Sort of thing a man would wear to lift a dirty trapdoor lid. Stop worrying.”

“They’ll wonder how I knew where the entrance was.”

“It said in the newspapers that a secret passage led from the house to the garden. You had this brainwave, so we searched the garden and found it. Don’t you want to go back and have a peek and make sure it’s the missing landlord?”

“I can’t.”

“Well, we’ll soon know. You’re getting soft in the country, Aggie. I’m sure the city mouse wouldn’t be in such a shake.”

“Charles, I’ve often wondered if you’ve any feelings at all.”

“Oh, lots and lots. But I didn’t know this landlord and he sounds no end of a creep. I can hear sirens. Won’t be long. I’d better get my lawyer out of bed.”

“Why? We didn’t murder him.”

“Try telling Runcorn that. ‘Oh, officer,’ says Aggie, ‘I had a dream.’ He’s not going to buy that.”

It was a long night. Agatha and Charles and Charles’s sleepy lawyer waited and waited after being taken to police headquarters for their interviews.

Agatha was to be interviewed first. At last she was summoned and the lawyer rose to join her.

The lawyer, a Mr. Jellicoe, was an imposing figure and Agatha was sure that without his steely interruptions, Runcorn would have grilled her to the point where she would almost feel like confessing to murder just to have the interview over.

Then it was Charles’s turn.

The noon sunshine was streaming in through the dusty windows of police headquarters when he came out to join her. “They’re giving us a lift back to Hebberdon.” They both thanked the lawyer and went out to where the police car was waiting. Haley was at the wheel.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Agatha, sliding into the back seat with Charles.

“How’s Paul?” asked Haley as she drove off.

“Fine,” said Agatha. “I gather from the horrible Runcorn that the body we found was the landlord’s.”

“I’m not allowed to discuss the case.”

“Oh, really?” snapped Agatha. “Then how come you flapped your mouth off to Paul?”

The back of Haley’s neck turned pink. “That was private.”

“Aggie,” said Charles warningly, “we’re too tired for a fight.”

Agatha relapsed into a resentful silence, only waking when Haley drew up at Ivy Cottage.

“Thank you,” said Charles politely and Haley flashed him a smile.

“Trollop,” muttered Agatha as they walked to their car.

“Now, Aggie, that’s nothing but jealousy.”

Agatha ignored the remark and slid into the passenger seat. “God, I’m tired. I only hope for Harry’s sake that the police find some evidence that Barry Briar was blackmailing someone else.”

“We’ll sleep on it.”

Back at her cottage, Agatha switched off the phone and disconnected the doorbell. “Don’t want to be disturbed,” she said. “I’m going to sleep as long as possible.”

“I’m going to make breakfast.”

“Help yourself. I’m too tired to eat.”

Before Agatha plunged down into sleep, she wondered what Paul would make of the latest development and wished that Charles would take himself off.

AGATHA’S first thought on waking later in the day was that they should try to see Carol and then go on to Wormstone. When she got up, it was to find Charles was still asleep. She defrosted a package which turned out to be lasagne, microwaved it and ate it. Then she phoned Paul but didn’t get a reply.

Impatient for action, she woke Charles and then had a shower and dressed. Charles was in the kitchen when she went downstairs, playing with the cats by tossing a crumpled ball of alumium foil in the air and watching them leap for it.

She surveyed the scene from the kitchen door, wondering, as she had wondered so many times in the past, what Charles really thought about her. He came and went at will, always as self-contained and enigmatic as her cats.

“I thought we should try to see Carol and find out how Harry’s getting on and then go to Wormstone,” she said.

“Righto,” said Charles lazily. He opened the kitchen bin to drop the foil into it and looked down at the discarded package of lasagne. “Aggie, you’re supposed to eat a certain amount of fresh fruit and vegetables each day. All you do is smoke, drink black coffee, and eat trash. You’ll get spots.”

“I’m too old to get spots.”

“One is never too old to get spots. Or cancer.”

“I haven’t had cancer. You’ve had cancer.”

“But I swear it’s my healthy life-style that fought it off. Okay, let’s go.”

Carol was at home. Her eyes were blotchy with recently shed tears. “Poor Harry,” she said. “Isn’t it awful?”

“He has been actually charged, has he?” asked Charles.

“They’ve charged him with the murder of Mother. Oh, dear, what can I do?”

“We’re working on it,” said Agatha. “Did he say why he went over to see your mother that particular night?”

“He said he couldn’t stop worrying about the financial mess he was in. He said it was just an impulse. He wanted to try again to see if she would lend him some money. He said he got no reply. He assumed she had seen him from the window and had decided not to open the door. She had done that before. So he just drove back and joined the party.”

“It’s a wonder the stage-door man didn’t see him coming and going.”

“Freddy was at the party himself. They decided there was no need for him to man the stage door after the party began.”

“Are you sure neither of you knew about that secret passage?”

“Quite sure.”

“Then why were you both so reluctant to let us search the house?”

“Harry had been down in the cellar and he said there was a lot of stuff there, old toys, things like that. He said we might be able to get a good price for some of it.” She turned pink. “He was worried you might pinch some of it.”

Agatha experienced a flash of dislike for Harry. He probably did the murders, she thought.

“Had he paid Barry any money?” asked Charles.

“No. But he promised to. He said he would pay him when he got his inheritance.”

“How much was Barry asking for?”

“Fifty thousand pounds.”

“I wonder when Barry was murdered,” said Agatha. “You see, if it turns out he was murdered while Harry was in jail, then surely the police will have to let him go. Because that would prove that Barry was probably blackmailing someone else.”

A gleam of hope lit up Carol’s watery eyes. “Can you find out?”

“I’ll try,” said Agatha, thinking of Bill Wong.

“Now, why Wormstone?” asked Charles as they got back into the car.

“I don’t like Peter Frampton.”

“So why don’t we go and spit in his face? He’s in Towdey, not Wormstone.”

“Because it’s a long shot. What if Robin Barley asked him for advice on the Civil War?”

“The rector couldn’t remember.”

“But someone in the village might. We won’t take long.”

Paul Chatterton was at that moment in Towdey, looking for Zena Saxton’s address. He had typed notes into his computer of all he and Agatha had found out. He had more or less made up his mind that Harry had actually committed the murders, but he felt that Peter Frampton was a loose end to be tied up. He had wanted Ivy Cottage. Why that particular cottage? He was cross with Agatha because she was neglecting him in favour of Charles.