M.C. Beaton - The Love from Hell

“It was late at night. I heard the bell ringing and ringing. I opened the door and she flung herself into my arms and said her husband did not love her and could she stay with me.

“I thrust her away and told her never to call on me again. I slammed the door in her face. I thought she was mad. I mean, look at me! I’ve never been the sort of man that women go for.”

Agatha, looking at his gentle face, his droopy cardigan, and his other-worldly air, thought that before Melissa threw herself at him, there had probably been many approaches made to him which he had not even noticed.

“It’s all I can tell you,” said William. “Except I was not surprised to read of her murder. She was intensely narcissistic.”

“Do you happen to know if she was friendly with anyone else in the street?” asked Charles.

“She did say during her mad reasoning on incarnation that a Mrs. Ellersby at number twenty-five shared her views.”

“Right, we’ll try her.”

Agatha felt suddenly weary of the whole thing. She would have liked to stay longer in William’s pleasant sitting-room. “I was sorry to hear about your missing husband,” said William as he walked them to the door. He gave Agatha an awkward pat on the back. “Don’t worry. I always feel that no news is good news. Live people can hide, dead people usually get found.”

When Agatha and Charles had said good-bye to William and were walking down the street, Agatha suddenly said, “But why would James want to hide from me?”

“Guilt,” said Charles. “Guilt about his fling with Melissa. Let’s go and talk to the dotty Mrs. Ellersby.”

∨ The Love from Hell ∧

7

MRS. Ellersby looked perfectly sane when she answered the door to them. She had grey hair worn curled and shoulder-length, thick glasses, and a face where all the wrinkles seemed to run downwards to a turtle-neck. Agatha surreptitiously felt her own neck and mentally planned to visit her beautician soon.

After introductions and explanations, she led them down to her kitchen. These tall Victorian houses, thought Charles, would once have had maids and a cook. Now the residents, if they were lucky, made do with a cleaning woman. The kitchen was neither pretentious nor weird. Fittings, thought Agatha, casting an expert eye around, by Smallbone of Devizes. Must have money.

“So you want to know about Melissa?” said Mrs. Ellersby. “Before we start, can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?”

Both shook their heads. “I met Melissa at a class on Buddhism. I was very taken with her. So full of energy. So anxious to learn all she could. I lent her my books on the subject and we had interesting discussions.”

“Where is this class?” asked Charles.

“It’s been disbanded. So sad. It was in a church hall in Saint Giles’.”

“So you found Melissa a perfectly nice person?” asked Agatha.

“At first. Then I was disappointed.”

“Why?”

“She turned out to be rather silly. She was interested in reincarnation. But only because she was sure she had been someone famous in a previous life. You see, at the beginning, she would listen to me as if she was fascinated by everything I had to tell her, and I must admit I was flattered. When I really got to know her, I was startled that I had not previously for a moment guessed at the sheer shallowness of her brain. She appeared to have a fixation that she had been the Empress Josephine in a previous life.”

“Did she ever talk about her husband?”

“Not to me. She talked about herself as Josephine, saying that Napoleon had given her a hard time and on occasions beat her up. I must say, I wondered if she might be referring obliquely to her own husband. I did not like him one bit.”

“Did you know him?” asked Agatha.

“Oh, yes. I had a party and I felt obliged to invite both of them. I had gone off Melissa, but she was still so friendly, I felt trapped. How can you say to someone, ‘I wish I had never befriended you’? I had invited some friends. The Sheppards behaved very badly. She kept making pointed little jokes at his expense. You know, that awful type of married woman who humiliates her husband in public. He drank too much, and then he suddenly shouted at her in front of everyone, ‘I must have been mad to marry you.’ I decided after that to have nothing more to do with her. The next time she called, I hid downstairs in the kitchen, waiting for her to go away. But she must have walked down the steps at the front of the house. I was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a cup of coffee. I looked up and saw her face pressed to the glass. We stared at each other for a long time. Then she went away and I never saw her again.”

“Do you think Sheppard could have murdered her?” asked Charles.

“Oh, easily,” said Mrs. Ellersby. She turned her mild, myopic gaze on Agatha. “But your husband was attacked, was he not? I can imagine Sheppard attacking her, but not anyone else.”

“But my husband had been having an affair with Melissa,” said Agatha through gritted teeth.

“I read about that. But she was divorced. It would take a very jealous man to do that, and it is my opinion that Sheppard hated her so much, he would probably be sorry for any man who became involved with her. Do not think too badly of your husband, Mrs. Raisin. You must wonder how he could ever have become involved with such a person. But she had great charm when one first met her. She exuded enthusiasm and energy and warmth. I’ve always prided myself on being a great judge of character, and yet I was initially taken in by her very easily.”

“Thank you,” said Agatha. “I needed to hear that.”

“Is there any news of your husband? I gather from the newspapers that he was ill.”

“Yes, he had a cancerous tumour,” said Agatha, “but the police have checked all the hospitals. He took his passport with him, but there is no record of him having left the country.”

“Which hospital was he being treated at?”

Agatha looked at her and frowned. “I don’t think he had started his treatment.”

“But he knew he had a tumour, so he would need to be diagnosed.”

“It would be Mircester General Hospital.”

“Perhaps if you ask there, you can find out perhaps how bad the tumour was, or if he let slip any of his plans. A lot of people are terrified at the idea of chemotherapy. He may have said something to his doctor.”

“I never thought of that,” said Agatha eagerly. “We can try there.”

They said good-bye to Mrs. Ellersby. “I’m hungry,” complained Charles, “and I’m not dashing off to Mircester and neither are you. Let’s leave the car where it is and walk up to Brown’s on Saint Giles’ and eat hamburgers.”

“All right,” said Agatha. “I’m suddenly weary.”

Brown’s, as usual, was very busy, but they got a table in the smoking section after only a ten-minute wait. “So many young people,” said Charles when they were seated. “Doesn’t it make you feel old, Aggie?”

The honest answer to that was that she had been feeling old all day, but Agatha only grunted by way of reply.

Charles ordered two hamburgers and a bottle of wine. “I’m driving,” said Agatha.

“So you are. All the more for me.”

“I would have thought something plebeian like beer would go better with hamburger and chips.”

“You’re only saying that because you can’t have any.”

“I can have a glass. That’s below the limit.”

“Cripes! Look over there. No, don’t stare. Do it casually. The table over in the corner on your left.”

Agatha took a covert look.

Then she turned back and hissed, “By all that’s holy, it’s Sheppard and his would-be child bride.”