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

“She is a very attractive woman, but no, I am not smitten with her.”

“So she rejected your advances?”

“Don’t be cheeky, Agatha. We’re only pretending to be engaged. You have no right to question me on my personal life.”

This was indeed true but for some reason Agatha did not want to be reminded of it.

“So you told me briefly before that you’d been to see Mrs. Essex and Mrs. Tremp. Nothing there, I gathered.”

“No, except the wine.”

“What wine?”

Agatha told him about the home-made wine and the odd effect it had had on her.

“That’s interesting,” said John. “You mean, Miss Jellop may have given Tristan some and he might have told her things he wouldn’t otherwise have said?”

“Could be.”

John sighed. “And now she’s dead, we’ll never know. What about Mrs. Tremp? There was something cold-blooded about the way she talked about her husband’s death. If a woman can sit looking at her husband who’s just had a stroke without immediately calling an ambulance, then she must be really pretty tough.”

“I don’t know. I kept the discussion to the duck races. She seemed pretty friendly and normal.”

“Did she know Peggy Slither?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s go and ask her.”

“I somehow don’t want anyone to know we’re still investigating,” said Agatha.

“You told me she was going to bake cakes for the big event. We’ll ask her how she’s getting on.”

“I suppose we could do that.”

After they had returned to Lilac Lane and had driven off in John’s car, Agatha felt the black edges of depression hovering around her. For years she had been driven by her obsession for James Lacey, getting James Lacey, and marrying James Lacey. Then she had been divorced by him. After that, she lived in dreams that one day he would return to her. Cold reality was telling her he would never return. Carsely had become a sinister place. She was going to interview a woman who probably did not know anything at all relevant to the case with a man she was pretending to be engaged to. Bill Wong, who had been a sort of soul mate in that he was always being rejected by the loves of his life, had at last found one who evidently could stand up to his parents.

“What’s up?” asked John.

“Nothing. Why?”

“This car’s filling up with gloom and it’s coming from you.”

“I’ve got a bit of a headache, that’s all.”

“Want to go back home and take some aspirin?”

“No, I’ll be all right. Here we are. She’s probably at home. I don’t think she goes out much.”

They parked and got out of the car. The door was standing open. Agatha rang the bell beside the door. The bell shrilled somewhere inside the house.

“That’s odd,” said John. “She must be in. Try again.”

Agatha rang the bell and waited.

“I think we’d better take a look inside,” said John uneasily.

Agatha walked in first. “Mrs. Tremp!” she called. No reply. Outside, the rooks cawed from their tree and the wind rushed around the converted barn.

Followed by John, she walked into the kitchen and let out a scream. Mrs. Tremp was lying stretched out on the floor, her eyes closed and her hands folded on her breast.

“See if she’s alive,” said John, tugging a mobile phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call the police.”

Mrs. Tremp opened her eyes at that moment and struggled to her feet. “It is my meditation hour,” she said crossly. “I do not like to be disturbed. I hoped you would go away.” She smoothed down her tweed skirt with her hands. “What do you want?”

Agatha sank down onto a kitchen chair. “I just wanted to ask if you could cope with all the cake baking for the duck race.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Tremp. “I would have told you if I could not. How are the arrangements going?”

“I’m on my way to see Farmer Brent,” said Agatha.

“You mean you haven’t got permission from him yet? You’d better hurry up. It’s only three weeks to the races.”

“Isn’t it terrible about Peggy Slither?” said John.

“Oh, her.” Mrs. Tremp gave a disdainful sniff. “Probably her ex-husband. He was furious at having to pay out so much after the divorce proceedings.”

“Did you know her?” asked Agatha.

“Tristan took me over to meet her once. Disgusting, vulgar woman.”

“I gather Tristan was friendly with her.”

“She was so rude to me that Tristan assured me he would have nothing more to do with her.”

“And you haven’t heard from her since?”

“Why should I? Such as Mrs. Slither and such as myself have absolutely nothing in common. Now I do have things to do. I suggest you get Mr. Brent’s permission as soon as possible.”

“We couldn’t really stay to get more out of her,” said John as they drove on to Brent’s farm at the top of the hill.

“She’s got a study off the hall,” said Agatha. “The door was open and I looked in as we went out. There’s a desk there with letters and correspondence. I’d love to have a look at them. I think she’s hiding something. I wonder if Tristan ever wrote to her.”

“Why should he?” asked John. “I mean, he was in the same village.”

“Still, I wouldn’t mind having a look. Maybe she wrote to someone about him.”

“Then the someone will have the letter. Not Mrs. Tremp.”

“There was a computer on the desk. Maybe she’s got letters logged in it. The days when it was considered bad manners to type a letter to a friend have long gone.”

“I don’t know how you’re ever going to have a chance to look at them.”

“Maybe. I wonder if she locks her door at night.”

“Meaning,” said John, “you plan to creep in one night and have a look? Don’t be silly. There’d be all hell to pay if you were caught. Is that the entrance to Brent’s farm on the left?”

“Yes, let’s hope he’s at home. I don’t feel like trekking over muddy fields looking for him.”

To her relief, Mark Brent opened the door to them himself.

“I was just about to have a cup of tea,” he said. He was a tall, thin man with long arms and stooped shoulders. His thick hair was grey and his long face burnt red by working outdoors. “The wife’s off visiting her sister,” he said. He prepared a pot of tea and put mugs and milk and sugar on the table. “Sit down,” he said. “Isn’t it awful about these murders? Is that why you’re here, Mrs. Raisin?”

“No,” said Agatha. “It’s about these duck races. I remember you had an event for the boy scouts in one of your fields with a pretty stream running through it.” She told him all about the duck races.

“It’s all yours,” said Brent. “There’s cattle in that field but I’ll move them for the day. When is it to be held?”

“October twenty-third.”

“Fine. I like to do my bit. Help yourselves. I’m glad I’m outside the village. It’s as if that there damned curate and his poncy ways brought something evil in with him.”

“You knew Tristan?” asked Agatha.

“My wife, Gladys, was friendly with him. I’d come in from the fields and there they’d be, laughing and joking, and Gladys looking like a dog’s dinner, all tarted up in her Sunday best although it was a weekday. Then she tells me she wants a cheque for this Tristan. She says he could invest money for us and make a killing. I said the only killing was going to be Tristan himself. There was something slimy about him. So I got him one day in the village and told him if he came near my wife again I’d set the dogs on him. Poor Gladys cried and cried when I told her and called me a monster.”

“‘I put up with it,’ I says, ‘until he tried to get money out of you.’ Fact is, she thought he fancied her. Now don’t get me wrong. My Gladys is a fine-looking woman but she’s in her fifties.” He looked at Agatha. “Didn’t have you fooled as well, did he, Mrs. Raisin? I heard how you had dinner with him the night he was murdered.”