M Beaton: Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

“I’m sure she was telling me the truth,” said Agatha hotly. “You think she’s lying because I got a lot more out of her than you did!”

“It’s a thought all the same. Then there’s Mrs. Shaw-part.”

“But we don’t know where she is!”

“Don’t we? We don’t know how long any of the married women suspects have been married. Could be Mavis.”

“Who miraculously produces a teen-aged daughter and son after about a year?”

“Did you see any photos of her children? I didn’t. I don’t trust Mavis one bit.”

“We’re forgetting Mrs. Dairy,” said Agatha. “Poor Mrs. Dairy. What on earth could she have possibly found out that we didn’t?”

“That’s a point. Why don’t we trot along to the vicarage and ask Mrs. Bloxby for some gossip?”

As they approached the vicarage door, Agatha found herself hoping the vicar was not at home to start shouting in front of Charles about “that dreadful woman.”

But Mrs. Bloxby answered the door with her usual glad smile of welcome. Agatha knew her to be a busy woman and yet she never appeared to be flustered by the unheralded arrival of visitors.

“This is nice,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Come into the kitchen. I’ve got some fresh coffee ready.”

Agatha sat down at the kitchen table and half-closed her eyes, letting the peace of the vicarage wash over her. Why did she always create such an insane world for herself, she wondered, where the totally unacceptable became the acceptable? What was she doing sitting here companionably with Charles? She should have told him to get lost, she should have said she would never see him again. And, what was even more important, she should stop this silly business of pretending to be a detective and let the police get on with it.

Mrs. Bloxby put down thin china mugs of coffee in front of them and a plate of chocolate biscuits before sitting down herself. “You were away yesterday, Agatha?”

“Yes”

“The press were suddenly all over the place. You know, there were only a few directly after the murder. The police must have released that there was some connection between Mrs. Dairy and the murder of the hairdresser, although they appear to have released nothing about John Shawpart’s blackmailing activities. You see, there wasn’t much of a fuss before because the press thought it was just another murder of a pensioner in the Midlands. How awful that sounds! Just another murder. But there are so many. The longer people live, the more pensioners there are, and the more that get murdered. They’re such an easy, vulnerable target.”

“Someone will be after Aggie next,” said Charles.

“I’m not a pensioner,” snapped Agatha.

“So were you investigating yesterday?” asked Mrs. Bloxby.

“Went to Portsmouth.”

“With her toy boy,” murmured Charles.

“Now why does that ring a bell? Portsmouth,” mused Mrs. Bloxby, ignoring Charles.

“That’s where John Shawpart came from,” said Agatha.

“So it is. But there’s something else… Never mind, it’ll come to me. So how did you get on?”

Agatha told her about Harriet. “That poor woman!” exclaimed Mrs. Bloxby.

“If she was telling the truth,” Charles put in. “Aggie here is very gullible.

“I think that remark was uncalled for,” said Mrs. Bloxby.

“Tell him about Mavis,” said Agatha.

Mrs. Bloxby listened intently and then said, “But it does not follow that Harriet was lying. Why should she lie? She paid, didn’t she, and it’s thanks to Agatha that she got that five thousand pounds back.”

“There’re too many suspects,” said Agatha gloomily. “Because of Mavis, I think everyone has been lying to me. When I overheard that woman telling John she would kill him, he said it was the woman in the shop next door talking to her husband, but she said she wasn’t married. So she wasn’t married, but what if John had got his clutches into her?”

“So where do you go from here?” asked Mrs. Bloxby.

“I don’t know,” said Agatha wearily.

Charles nibbled on a chocolate biscuit. Then he said, “What about us visiting Bill Wong? He surely knows something about that wife of John’s. In fact, he probably knows a hell of a lot more than we do.”

Agatha brightened. “That’s an idea. Let’s go and see Bill. In fact, I think we’ll do that now. Thanks for the coffee.”

She and Charles got up.

Agatha turned in the doorway. “I quite forgot to ask you: Do you know where Mrs. Dairy came from? Where did she live before she came to Carsely?”

“How stupid of me,” exclaimed Mrs. Bloxby. “How could I have forgotten?”

“Forgotten what?”

“Why, Portsmouth, of course. Mrs. Dairy came from Portsmouth!”

“PHEW!” said Agatha. “I’m feeling as if I’ve been just struck by a blinding flash of the obvious.”

“What do you mean?” asked Charles as they walked back to the cottage.

“Why, Mrs. Dairy, of course. She wouldn’t have been clever enough to ferret out anything dangerous about the murderer in such a short time. She must have known Mr. John in Portsmouth! So it follows she probably knew who murdered him.”

“How could she know that?” asked Charles. “She’d just have been in the same fix as we are. All those people being blackmailed. Who to choose from?”

“Stands to reason it must have been someone from Portsmouth.”

“Harriet?”

“I’m sure it’s not Harriet. Damn. Let’s go in and have some coffee and think before we see Bill Wong.”

When they were seated over the coffee-cups, Agatha said, “If only we could find the wife.”

“Maybe the police have already found her. They’re bound to have found her.”

“You see, perhaps we’ve become all messed up by this blackmail business. Perhaps it was just marital hate.”

“Trust me,” said Charles. “When you’ve got a blackmailer in the picture, then someone is going to murder him.”

“Anyway, I think I’ll call on Bill Wong.”

“Shouldn’t you phone him first?”

Agatha hesitated. Then she said, “No, let’s just go. Unless you have anything else planned?”

“No,” said Charles gloomily. “I’m off women.”

Meaning I don’t count as a woman, thought Agatha.

As they drove to Mircester, Agatha admired the autumn colours of the trees. “How quickly the seasons change now,” she remarked. “It seems as if someone drew a line between summer and autumn. Not so long ago we were sweltering and then suddenly, fall fell. Do you think it’s the ozone layer?”

“Probably it’s disintegrating under all the cigarette smoke from people like you.”

“Nasty. I wonder if that hypnotist in Gloucester is any good.”

“You’ll never know until you try.”

“It’s the mean people like you who manage to cut down on their smoking, Charles.”

“You’re just jealous because you’re a confirmed addict. Why don’t you just stop now?”

There was a silence and then Agatha said suddenly, “Why don’t I? When we get to Mircester, I’m going to take the cigarettes out of my handbag and throw them in the nearest rubbish bin.”

“And what about that carton you’ve got at home?”

“We shall burn them ceremoniously on the fire when we get home.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Agatha felt the hunger for a cigarette. She would fight it. It was only a matter of will-power.

They parked outside police headquarters in Mircester. “Probably be out on a job,” said Charles. “We should have called.”

“We’ll try anyway.”

They were in luck. They were shown into a room and told that Bill would be with them shortly.