M.C. Beaton - The Case of the Curious Curate

John emerged after only a few moments. “What was that about?” demanded Agatha.

“She just wanted to meet me for lunch sometime.”

“Oh,” grunted Agatha. “She might have asked me.”

“She’s not attracted to you,” said John with a certain air of smugness.

They had left the car in an underground car-park. “Better leave it where it is,” said John. “I don’t want to have to drive around Chelsea looking for a parking place. We’ll take the tube to Sloane Square and walk along.”

The King’s Road in Chelsea always reminded Agatha of her youth, when she was struggling to claw her way up the business ladder. That had been during the days when a good address mattered and she had paid an expensive rent for a flat in Draycott Gardens and had very little money left over for anything else. In the evenings, the restaurants had been crammed with trendy young people, laughing and drinking, and Agatha, on the outside looking in, would feel intensely lonely, with only her ambition to keep her warm.

She shrugged off her memories as they turned the corner of Parrot Street. Charlotte Bellinge lived in a thin white-stuccoed house. “At least someone’s at home,” she remarked. “One of the downstairs windows is open.”

John rang the bell and they waited. The door swung open and a young girl stood there. She had a pale spotty face, a stud in her nose and five little silver earrings in each ear. She was wearing a short tube-top exposing a pierced belly-button.

“What?” she asked.

“Is Lady Bellinge at home?” asked Agatha.

“Who wants her?”

“Here’s my card,” said John, stepping in front of Agatha. The girl disappeared, only to reappear a few moments later to say, “Come in.”

She opened the door to a sitting-room on the ground floor and Charlotte Bellinge came forward to meet them. She was exquisite: small, dainty, perfectly groomed. Her face was unlined and her large eyes were of an intense blue. Her hair was tinted a pale shade of gold. She was wearing a loose white silk shirt and tight black trousers.

“Now, why is a famous detective writer calling on me?” she asked.

Agatha and John sat down and John explained the reason for their visit while Agatha felt sulkily that she was been pushed to the sidelines, again.

“But how fascinating!” drawled Charlotte when John had finished. “Quite like one of your detective stories. I don’t see how I can help you. Tristan was a gorgeous boy and yes, he did have a crush on me.”

“Did you have an affair?” demanded Agatha, not liking the way John was staring at Charlotte with a dazed smile on his face.

“No, I did not. But he amused me and he was so very beautiful. He did, however, become demanding. I am not made of money.”

“He asked you for money?” Agatha leaned forward.

“Not in so many words. But when I took him out to some smart restaurant, he would complain his clothes were too shabby, so I paid to have him tailored and all that.” She waved one perfectly manicured little hand. “But then he began to ask for things as if he had some sort of right. So I got bored and said he ought to be going around with people of his own age and to leave me alone. He made some feeble attempt to blackmail me, threatening to tell the social columns that I had been having an affair with a curate. I told him if he did, I would sue him. I wanted to move to Chelsea anyway, so I moved and was glad to get away from him. He had become…quite frightening. I think he lived in fantasies. I think he believed I would actually marry him and he would live in the lap of luxury. He did crave the good life. I remember once when we were in a shop, he was looking at a cashmere sweater and he kept stroking it like a lover. He begged me to buy it for him and became so shrill that I did, to avoid a scene.”

“Were you surprised when you learned he was murdered?” asked Agatha.

“Yes, very surprised. If I had learned that Tristan had murdered someone, I would not have been nearly so surprised. So boring, all this raking over the past.” She turned a dazzling smile on John. “Do tell me about your books.”

And so John did and at great length, while Agatha shifted restlessly. When he had finally finished, Charlotte looked curiously at Agatha. “Are you two an item?”

Agatha opened her mouth to say they were engaged, but John said quickly, “We’re only pretending to be. You see, we didn’t want the police to know we had been up in London finding out things, so I invented the lie we were engaged to divert their suspicions.”

Charlotte gave a tinkling laugh. “How funny! You are very amusing, John.” She picked up her handbag, opened it and extracted a card. “My mobile-phone number and e–mail address are there. We should meet up for dinner one evening.”

“That would be wonderful,” said John.

“Excuse me,” snapped Agatha. “ If we could get back to the matter in hand: Did Tristan court any other women in the parish that you knew of?”

“No.” The beautiful eyes drifted back to John. “He seemed totally wrapped up in me.”

“Hardly surprising,” commented John. They gazed at each other and Agatha could have slapped them both.

She stood up, stocky and militant. “We’d best be going, dear .”

“What? Oh, yes, of course.”

“Sophie will show you out.”

“Your daughter?” asked Agatha.

Charlotte let out a trill of laughter. “No, my maid. They don’t wear caps and aprons like they did in your day, Mrs. Raisin.”

Agatha led the way. John hung back. She heard him saying, “I’ll phone you soon,” and then the amused murmur of Charlotte’s voice, “Next time leave your dragon behind.”

“She could have done it, mark my words,” said a truculent Agatha as she stomped her way along the King’s Road.

“Nonsense, Agatha. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. But we know one thing. Tristan was just the same sort of person in London as he was in New Cross.”

“I suppose so,” conceded Agatha, suddenly not wanting to appear jealous. “Where do we go from here?”

“Back to Carsely. I feel we let Peggy Slither’s nastiness put us off. Perhaps if I saw her on her own…?”

“By all means, try,” said Agatha, thinking that John in Carsely was at least not John entertaining Charlotte Bellinge in London. “But there’s one thing we’ve been forgetting. Who attacked Tristan in New Cross? Were the police called in? I wish we could ask them.”

“We could try that vicar, Lancing, again. I mean, he didn’t tell us at first about Binser, so he may be holding back other information.”

“Okay,” said Agatha, “back to New Cross.”

“I really don’t think you should keep coming round here,” said Mr. Lancing an hour later, when they were once more seated in his study. “I have told you all I know.”

“The thing that puzzles us,” said Agatha, “is this business about the attack on Tristan. Was it reported to the police?”

“No, it was not. Tristan became almost hysterical. He had to go to hospital and he told them there that he had suffered a bad fall. He kept saying over and over again that he wanted to get away. He seemed truly repentant about that business with Binser.”

“Did you know he had returned the money?” pursued Agatha.

“Yes, because he assured me he had.”

Agatha gave a click of annoyance. “You didn’t tell us that. You let us assume he had not.”

“I am afraid that after he had left, and on calmer reflection, I came to the conclusion that he had not. Now you tell me he did return the money, which relieves my conscience. He must indeed have been truly repentant.”

“I doubt it,” said John. “I don’t think repentance was in his nature. I’m beginning to think the return of the money and the beating were connected. I think we should have another word with Mr. Binser.”