M Beaton - Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

She was shampooed and with a dithering feeling of anticipation was led through to Mr. John.

“Agatha,” he said, giving her a warm smile. He pressed her shoulders and then gripped them hard.

She looked, startled, at his reflection in the mirror. Under the bruises, his face was an unhealthy red colour.

“Excuse me,” he muttered. He fled to the toilet. The tape deck was playing a selection of sixties pop. The Beatles were belting out “She’s got a ticket to ride,” filling the salon with noisy sound. The number finished and then Agatha and everyone else could hear retching sounds coming from the toilet.

Agatha went through and knocked at the door and called, “What’s the matter?”

Another bout of dreadful retching answered her. She was joined by the assistant, Garry.

“He sounds terribly ill,” said Agatha. She rattled the door handle.

“John! John! Let me in.”

She was answered by a loud tearing groan. Then crashing noises.

“Break open the door!” she shouted at Garry.

The willowy Garry threw himself against it but succeeded only in hurting his shoulder.

Agatha was joined by the other customers. Maggie was amongst them, she noticed.

“Get me a screwdriver or chisel,” said Agatha. “Quick. Josie, phone for an ambulance.”

Garry went into the nether regions and came back with a tool-box. Agatha seized a chisel and stuck it into the door jamb at the lock and jerked it sideways. There was a splintering and cracking as the flimsy lock gave way.

Mr. John was lying on the floor. He was now stretched out, immobile, his eyes staring upwards. His pale grey eyes. God, even his eyes have changed colour, thought Agatha wildly.

She knelt down and felt for his pulse, only finding a faint flutter. In the distance, she could hear the wail of the ambulance siren. Thank God, the hospital was quite near.

She gagged at the smell. Vomit was everywhere.

“Ambulance is here!” shouted Josie. Everyone except Agatha rushed to the door. She stared helplessly down at John, wishing she knew first aid. And then she saw his keys had fallen out of his pocket. She scooped them up and put them in the pocket in her skirt.

The ambulance men came in. They told everyone to stand clear. After what seemed to Agatha like an interminable wait he was carried out to the ambulance with a drip in his arm and an oxygen mask over his face.

The police arrived and took notes. “Might be food poisoning, by the sound of it,” said one.

“Can I go home now?” asked the woman called Maggie. Her face was paper-white. “I’ve had a terrible shock.”

“I suppose so,” said one. “We’ll just take a note of your names and addresses and then you can go. But you can’t leave until then.”

There were exclamations of dismay from some of the other customers who, although they were half-way through perms and tints, just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. Maggie sat down and began to cry.

Agatha felt the keys burning a hole in her pocket. Why had she taken them?

Because, she thought, her brain sharpened by fear, perhaps he was a blackmailer, perhaps I’ve been as silly as Charles thinks I am. If he were a blackmailer, then he might have something on Mrs. Friendly in his house. Poor Mrs. Friendly. Why should she suffer more? Agatha did not realize that she had become a true villager: Although Mrs. Friendly was nothing more than an acquaintance, she felt she should be protected, even if it meant breaking the law.

She gave her name and address to one of the policemen. Her hair was still wet but she didn’t care. She wanted to find out what was in that house and then somehow return with the keys and hide them somewhere in the salon. Besides, when Mr. John recovered from his bout of food poisoning, which was what it had looked like, then she would know definitely one way or the other whether he was a villain or simply a very good hairdresser with nothing sinister about him to worry her. Her mind jumped to murder. Could it be murder? The police would not search his house because of simple food poisoning.

Oh yes, they would, she suddenly thought. They’ll want to go through everything and find out what he ate. The Chinese meal! She hoped it wasn’t that. But he would have developed symptoms of food poisoning before today and she herself would have fallen ill.

Feeling naked and exposed, she parked in the back streets behind the Cheltenham Road and set off on foot for the villa. The neighbours might be watching and although they might not spot her, they might remember the make and registration number of any car parked outside the house. The day was so dark and still. As she cautiously approached the villa by way of the side street which ran along the side of it, she glanced nervously to right and left but no face glimmered at her through a window and no one was working in their garden.

After putting on a pair of gloves and fumbling with several of the keys, she found the right one and let herself in.

How many eyes had been watching her from the house opposite? She could say he had given her the keys before he collapsed. Oh, God, his staff would say he had done no such thing. But she was here and so she may as well get on with it.

She walked through the silent, dark, over-furnished rooms. No desk, no filing cabinet. She went upstairs. Two bedrooms showing no signs of recent occupation and then a large double bedroom, obviously his. She searched the bedside table and then the pockets of his jackets in the wardrobe.

Reluctant now to give up the search, she went slowly downstairs. And then, at the bottom of the stairs, she saw a door she had missed before. It was padlocked. A cellar door?

She tried all the keys until she had found the right one. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

She switched on the light inside the door and made her way down steep stone steps to a basement room. She was just reaching for the switch to illuminate the basement when she heard a noise above her head. She switched off the light on the stairs and stood in the darkness, panting like a hunted animal. The police must have arrived.

Agatha had a little torch in her handbag. If only she could find another way out of the basement! Her heart slowed down its pounding race. She cocked her head and listened hard. There were furtive noises from above. She frowned. The police would surely make more noise. Then a sinister gurgling sound. She had shut the door behind her at the top but the padlock was hanging open on the other side of the door.

Then there was a tremendous whoosh and she heard the upstairs street door close.

In one horrified split second she knew what had happened. Someone had set the house alight!

She switched on the basement light. A dusty room with exercise machines and weights and a desk in the corner-a desk that was under a dirty window.

Later Agatha was to reflect that a cool detective would have seized papers from that desk, but all she could think of was the horror of burning to death.

She climbed on the desk and tugged at the window. It was firmly shut. She climbed down and heaved up one of the heaviest of the weights and hurled it at the window, which broke leaving a jagged hole. She smashed away the rest of the glass round the hole and with her gloved hands dragged herself up and through onto a patch of weedy earth outside.

She was in the garden at the side of the house, between the house and garage.

She crouched on her hands and knees behind a bush. How to get away unobserved? She took the keys from her pocket and threw them back in through the window.

Overhead came a great crack of thunder and the rain came down in sheets, so heavy it blotted out the view of the houses around.

A woman ran past down the street. Agatha had an excuse to be seen running hard.