M Beaton - Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

Agatha and Charles got up and made their way to the door. “My wife has enough to do with the housekeeping here without wasting time on parish affairs,” he said as they edged past him.

“Quite,” murmured Agatha. “Such a pleasure to meet you again.”

“Tcha!”

“And ya sucks boo to you to,” said Agatha when she and Charles emerged into the pouring rain. “Let’s run. I’m getting soaked.”

They ran all the way to Agatha’s cottage. They dried themselves off in their respective rooms, changed into dry clothes and met up again in the kitchen.

“Well,” said Agatha, “what did you make of that? Mrs. Dairy!”

“Who she?”

“The ferrety woman with the nasty little dog.”

“Ah, the one who retrieved your phone book.”

“The same.”

“So do we tackle her next?”

“I suppose so, although she’s going to be most dreadfully rude. Damn, if it hadn’t been for Liza. I would be regretting having tried to rescue any incriminating papers. God, would I love to have some dirt on Mrs. Dairy.”

“What’s her first name?”

“In the ladies’ society of Carsely, Charles, first names do not exist. We are all Miss this and Mrs. that.”

“Where does she live?”

“Grim little house called Parks Cottage up Parks Lane, at the back of the village shop.”

“The rain is easing off. I think we should go before you lose courage. Maybe she’ll have a garden full of castor-oil plants.”

Agatha hesitated. “What sort of approach are we going to take?”

“Nasty and blunt, I should think, dear Aggie. Sort of thing you do best.”

WATERY sunlight struck down on the cobbles as they made their way to Mrs. Dairy’s cottage. Not for one moment would Agatha admit to herself that she was intimidated by the waspish Mrs. Dairy and yet she experienced a sinking feeling as they approached the cottage and she saw that the door was standing open and the nasty little dog was snuffling about the steps.

“No castor-oil plants,” commented Charles, looking around the small front garden. “Nothing but laurels and other dreary shrubs. Wonder what’s round the back.”

Mrs. Dairy appeared at her front door. Her greeting was typical. “What do you want?”

“We wanted to have a word with you.” Agatha surreptitiously edged the snuffling dog away from her ankles with her foot.

“I don’t think I should invite you in,” said Mrs. Dairy, her thin face bright with malice. “I have my reputation to think of.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Agatha, irritated, gave the little dog another kick.

“I don’t think I should let you and one of your fancy men into my home.”

Charles brayed with laughter and Agatha glared at Mrs. Dairy.

“Okay,” she said truculently, raising her voice. “We’ll stand out here and discuss your fancy man, the late Mr. John Shawpart.”

For once, Agatha had obviously scored over the terrible Mrs. Dairy, whose green eyes goggled and then darted right and left. “Come in,” she said abruptly. Her little dog raised his leg and peed onto Agatha’s shoe.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” howled Agatha. The dog scampered into the house. Agatha removed her shoe and, taking out a tissue, wiped it clean.

“Supposed to be lucky, Aggie,” said Charles. “Let’s go in before she changes her mind and slams the door on us.”

Another dark cottage living-room, everything in shades of dull green: green velvet upholstered three-piece suite, green walls, dark green fitted carpet, green leaves from the thick ivy outside which covered the cottage, blocking out any light the small windows might have afforded. All sat down and faced each other in this subterranean gloom.

“What did you mean by that remark?” demanded Mrs. Dairy. The dog leapt on her lap and she kneaded her thin fingers in its coat.

“John Shawpart was a blackmailer,” said Agatha. “He wooed women, found out about them, and then blackmailed them.”

“Rubbish!” Mrs. Dairy sounded breathless. “I’m a respectable woman. Who could possibly want to blackmail me? I am not like you, Mrs. Raisin, with your scandalous affairs with younger men.”

Checkmate, thought Agatha. What could there be in this acidulous women’s life that was worth a blackmailer’s time?

“Money,” said Charles suddenly. “It was all about money. We know that.”

He was half talking to himself, but Mrs. Dairy stared at him like a rat hypnotized by a snake.

“You know,” she said through dry lips.

Agatha was about to say they didn’t know, but Charles looked at Mrs. Dairy compassionately and said, “Oh, yes. We haven’t told anyone and Agatha here went to great lengths to try to destroy any evidence that might have incriminated you. That is why we have not gone to the police. We would be in trouble ourselves. Just tell us how he came to get the information.”

“I went there to get my hair done,” said Mrs. Dairy in a low voice, quite unlike her usual biting tones. “We got friendly. Had a few meals. I was flattered. I told him that my late husband had been a plumber. A master plumber,” she added with some of her old spirit in case he might think he was an ordinary tradesman. “We were talking about taxes and VAT and how iniquitous both were. He said sympathetically that there were ways round it. He knew a lot of tradesmen who would offer to do a job for a bit less for cash in hand. I’d had a bit too much to drink and so I told him that was what my Clarence had done and so that was the reason I had been left comfortably off.

“Then he phoned me two days later. I couldn’t believe it. We were friends! He told me unless I paid him five thousand pounds, he would inform the Inland Revenue that my husband had been cheating them for years. I panicked. I called on him and said that if he did that, I would kill him.” She fell silent. Then she said, “When I heard he was dead, it was like the end of a nightmare.”

“But look here,” said Agatha. “When did your husband die?”

“Five years ago.”

“But how on earth could the Inland Revenue find out that he had been taking cash payments and not declaring them?”

“They could have gone to his old customers. 1 sold the plumbing firm, but they’ll still have the old records.”

“But if they were paying cash,” said Agatha patiently, “those payments would not appear on the books.”

“But what if they found out his old customers and asked them?”

“What would they say?” asked Charles. “They couldn’t admit to cheating the income tax either. They’d be in a deep shit.”

Weak tears ran down Mrs. Dairy’s face. “So it was all for nothing.”

“All what?” asked Agatha sharply.

“All my worry. All my sleepless nights.”

“You didn’t kill him?”

“No. I read about it in the papers. Ricin. I’d never even heard of it. Please don’t tell the police any of this.”

“I can’t,” said Agatha. “I went to his house to destroy any evidence and someone set it alight. The police don’t even know I was there.”

Mrs. Dairy got up stiffly, as if her joints were hurting. “I shall make tea,” she said and disappeared into the nether regions.

“You can take the offer of tea as thanks for trying to save her neck,” said Charles.

“It wasn’t her scrawny neck I was trying to save but Mrs. Friendly’s. John really did pray on silly, ugly women who would be flattered by his attentions.”

“And some not so ugly,” said Charles with a slanting look at her.

“I wasn’t taken in for a moment!”

“That’s not the way I saw it.”