M.C. Beaton - The Love from Hell

“A celibate late night,” said Agatha firmly. “We’ve been up to London, trying to find out more about what a sort of person Melissa was.”

“I cleaned for her, you know,” said Doris, her voice muffled as she bent down to take out more cleaning material from a kitchen cupboard.

Agatha and Charles stared at each other. “Sit down, Doris,” said Agatha. “I didn’t know you cleaned for her. You didn’t say anything.”

Doris sat down reluctantly. “Didn’t like to, given the circumstances. Didn’t think you’d want to hear her name mentioned. And you’ve been looking so ill. I was right worried about you.”

“We’re trying to establish what sort of person Melissa was,” said Charles. “You see, that way we might figure out why she was murdered.”

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about this,” said Doris. “It was all hush-hush. But, then, she’s dead.”

Agatha and Charles looked at her eagerly. “What do you; mean, hush-hush?”

“She told me,” said Doris, looking over her apron shoulder and dropping her voice to a whisper, “not to touch anything on her desk. She said she was working on a secret project for the government. I should’ve told the police.”

Agatha sighed. “The one thing we have found out about Melissa was that she was a fantasist and a liar. But how long did you work for her?”

“Just a day a week.”

“Until she died?”

“No, I quit before then.”

“Why?”

Doris turned an uncomfortable red. “Do I have to tell you?”

“I think you’d better.”

“I went along one morning. She wasn’t around. She had given me a key, so I got started. I thought I would do the bedrooms first.”

She stared at Agatha.

Agatha sighed wearily. “You found her in bed with James.”

“Yes.”

“I gave her a piece of my mind and handed the key back and got out of there.”

James, James, how could you, and with such a woman? mourned Agatha.

Aloud, she said, “Forget about that part, Doris, and the hush-hush business. What else did you think about her?”

“She was very fussy. She would check up on my work. I said if she wasn’t satisfied, I’d quit, and she laughed and said that one time she used to have a lot of servants, butler and footmen and all that, and she was used to supervising and checking. Funny, I didn’t believe her. I mean, no one outside a few and the Queen has servants like that these days. But I didn’t think much about her one way or the other.”

“Even though you believed she was working for the government?” asked Charles.

“I didn’t think much about that. I mean, the Cotswolds are full of retired military people who like to hint they were in intelligence during the war. “I worked for the little grey men of Whitehall, for my sins.” And then you find they had some sort of minor desk job. I thought maybe she was doing some typing for a local MP, something like that. But the reason I didn’t tell the police was because she had made me promise not to tell anyone and there could have been some truth in it. I sometimes reckon I’m too cynical. You get that way cleaning houses. I’d better get on, Agatha.”

When Doris had gone off upstairs, Agatha said, “Typing. I wonder what she was typing? Who inherits? We didn’t ask Bill.”

“Let’s ask Mrs. Bloxby. Did Melissa have any children?”

“Don’t know that either.”

“So let’s get along to the vicarage.”

“After I’ve had something to eat. You might have made me some breakfast as well, Charles.”

“You were asleep.”

“Oh, I’ll fix something.”

Charles watched, amused, as Agatha took a packet of frozen curry out of the fridge and put it in the microwave. “You’re surely not going to eat curry for breakfast?”

“Why not?”

Charles waited while Agatha took the curry out of the microwave when it was ready and ate the unappetizing-looking mess, accompanied by strong black coffee, with every appearance of enjoyment.

Then she lit up a cigarette. “Can I have one of those?” asked Charles.

Agatha gave him a steely look.

“Have you heard of enabling, Charles?”

“Sounds like therapy-speak.”

“I mean you can buy your own. I may smoke but I do not encourage other people to do so, particularly when they show every sign of being able to do without it.”

“You’ll be a saint yet, Aggie. And talking of saints, let’s go and see Mrs. Bloxby.”

♦

Mrs. Bloxby was watering the vicarage garden. “So many greenfly and aphids,” she mourned. “It’s these warm summers. Said on the radio it would be cooler today, that it would go down to about seventy degrees Fahrenheit. I never thought I’d live to see the day when seventy degrees in England was considered getting cooler.”

“There’s rain forecast,” said Charles. “We’re still on the hunt for Melissa’s character.”

Mrs. Bloxby turned off the hose and joined them at the garden table. “What have you found out?”

They told her all they knew. She listened carefully and then she said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about Mrs. Sheppard since I saw you last. My first impression of her, I remember, was that she was a psychopath.”

“What!” exclaimed Agatha. “You mean like a serial killer!”

“No, no. There are different degrees of psychopathy. It was something about the eyes. She often had a blank fixed stare which reminded me of someone I once knew. I thought at the time I was being over-dramatic, but what you have told me seems to add up to the character of a certain sort of psychopath – the compulsive lying, the total lack of conscience. Also, looking back, I don’t really think Mrs. Sheppard liked anyone at all.”

“That’s interesting,” said Charles. “Why we came to see you was we wondered if anyone had inherited her cottage?”

“I heard through village gossip that she had not left a will and that there are no children.”

“I would like to have a look inside,” said Agatha. “I’d like to see what she was typing.”

“It’s probably at Mircester police headquarters in an evidence box.”

“I’d still like to get inside that cottage.”

“Mrs. Simpson cleaned for her. She may still have a key.”

“She says she gave it back.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this,” said Mrs. Bloxby, “but I Mrs. Simpson was always worried about losing clients’ keys and she once let slip that she always makes a copy.”

“Bingo!” cried Agatha. “Come on, Charles. Let’s go back and see Doris.”

♦

Doris Simpson insisted mulishly that she never would dream of copying her customers’ keys, until Agatha shouted at her that they damn well knew she did. Doris said huffily that, well, perhaps she might still have a key to Melissa’s cottage, and was promptly bundled into Agatha’s car and driven to her home and asked to find it.

“I feel we’re doing the wrong thing,” said Charles, as they walked to Melissa’s cottage.

“Why?”

“Because if Fred Griggs comes strolling past, we’ll be in bad trouble if we’re caught.” Fred Griggs was the local policeman.

“Look,” said Agatha as they parked outside. “No police tape. It’s been removed. We can just say she borrowed something of mine and I wanted it back.”

“And Fred will say, ‘What’s all this? Why didn’t you ask the police?’”

“And I’ll say that we know the police are too busy. Stop worrying , Charles.”

They walked up to the cottage door. “See. It’s just a simple Yale key,” said Agatha, inserting it in the lock. “Anyone could break in.”

“That awful dead smell is still hanging about,” said Charles. “There’s still fingerprint dust over everything. If we touch anything, Aggie, they’ll have clear marks of our fingerprints. We haven’t got gloves.”