Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage (16 page)

‘Tell us about them,’ said Agatha eagerly. ‘Everyone else we’ve asked seems vague, even someone who slept with Jimmy.’

‘Let me see . . . would you both like coffee?’

‘No, thank you,’ said James, anxious to hear what she had to say and frightened that if she went into the kitchen, she might change her mind about talking to them.

‘Desmond and I joked about health farms at first. We weren’t really interested in our health. We thought it might be an amusing place to get together. His wife might have found a
visit to a hotel suspicious but Desmond had told her he was worried about his blood pressure. Jimmy Raisin was a wreck. We arrived on the same day. He was still stinking of booze, but after only a
couple of days, he looked like a changed man. He was always oiling around us, my-ladying me to death and claiming to know all sorts of celebrities. He was the sort of man who calls celebs by their
first name. He kept talking about his good friend, Tony, who had won an Oscar, and it turned out to be Anthony Hopkins. I don’t suppose he even knew him. Mrs Gore-Appleton was not much
better. She was – what is it the Americans say? – in my face. She had an abrasive manner overlaid with syrup. You know, she paid me effusive compliments while all the time her sharp
eyes watched me to see if I was swallowing any of it. Desmond finally told them we wanted some time to ourselves. The day after that – that would be about five days after we arrived –
they began to throw us very
knowing
looks and then pass our table and give contemptuous laughs. I thought it was because Desmond had snubbed them. But they must have found out I wasn’t
Lady Derrington. What else can I tell you? I thought Jimmy Raisin was a wide boy, what they used to call a spiv. There was something seedy about him. I gathered from the newspapers that you had not
seen him in a very long time, Mrs Raisin. The Gore-Appleton woman was blonde and muscular, tried to be very pukka, but there was something all wrong about her. I tell you what. Let me get us all
some coffee and I’ll think some more.’

Agatha and James waited until she returned with a tray. There was not only coffee but home-made toasted tea-cakes. ‘Did you really make these yourself?’ James took another
appreciative bite. ‘These are excellent and the coffee is divine.’ He stretched out his long legs. ‘It’s very comfortable here.’

Helen gave him a slow smile. ‘Come when you’re in town and have a free hour to spare.’

Agatha stiffened. This wretched woman suddenly seemed like more competition than any blonde sylph. She was suddenly anxious to get James away.

But Helen was talking again. ‘You say he slept with some woman?’ She laughed. ‘I love that euphemism, “slept with”. One does anything but.’ She gave a warm
creamy laugh and Agatha’s bearlike eyes fastened on her with barely concealed hate.

‘That would be a Mrs Comfort, am I right?’

‘How did you know?’ said James.

‘Oh, he was making up to her and the Gore-Appleton woman was egging him on. I heard him say, “I’ll get her tonight,” and Mrs Gore-Appleton laughed and said, “Have
fun,” and the next morning, well, body language and all that, you know what I mean, don’t you, James?’

‘Oh, absolutely.’

I’ll kill this bitch, thought Agatha.

‘And that poor spinster lady, she was murdered,’ said Helen with an artistic shudder. ‘More coffee, James?’

Her tailored silk blouse had a deep V and she leaned forward, deliberately, Agatha thought, to reach for the coffee pot at such an angle that James could see two excellent breasts encased in a
frilly brassiere.

James had another full cup of coffee and was helping himself to another tea-cake. Agatha groaned inwardly.

Helen suddenly looked at her. ‘I remember now. You and Mr Lacey here were to be married but Jimmy turned up at your wedding.’ She laughed again. ‘That must have been quite a
scene. You’ll be able to marry now.’

‘Yes,’ said Agatha.

‘We haven’t made any plans,’ said James.

There was an awkward silence.

‘We should go,’ said Agatha harshly.

‘Could you just wait until I finish my coffee,
dear
?’

Agatha, who had half-risen, sat down again.

‘Lacey, Lacey,’ Helen was saying. ‘Are you any relative of Major-General Robert Lacey?’

‘My father. He died some time ago.’

‘Oh, then you must know . . .’ And what followed was the sort of conversation Agatha dreaded, James and Helen animatedly talking about people she did not know.

At last, when Agatha felt she could not stand another moment without screaming, James got to his feet with obvious reluctance.

They took their leave, Agatha first, muttering a grumpy thanks, James after her, stopping to kiss Helen on the cheek and promising to see her again, giving her his card and taking one of
hers.

Agatha fumed the whole way back to Carsely. She complained bitterly about harpies who sponged off men instead of going out to work. James tried to point out that as a secretary to a Member of
Parliament, Helen did go out to work, but that only seemed to make Agatha worse. He left her at the cottage, saying he had to see someone, whereupon Agatha tortured herself with mad jealousy,
imagining him driving back to London to spend the night with Helen. She finally went to bed and tried to read, listening all the while for the sound of his key in the door. At last, just after
midnight, she heard him return, heard him come upstairs and go into the bathroom, heard him wash, heard him go to his own room without coming in to say goodnight to her, although he could surely
see the light shining under her door.

She raised her head and banged her pillow with her fist, put out the light, and tried to compose herself for sleep. But sleep would not come as she tossed and turned, tormenting herself with
pictures of a world out there full of women all too ready to snatch James away from her.

And then she stiffened. She heard a furtive noise from somewhere downstairs and then the clack of the letterbox, then a sound like water being poured. She pulled on her dressing-gown and ran
down the stairs. She opened the door to the hall as a gloved hand threw a lighted match through the letterbox. In that instant Agatha leaped back into the living-room and screamed,
‘James!’ just as a sheet of flame reached out for her.

He came hurtling down the stairs. ‘We’re on fire,’ shouted Agatha. She made to open the door again but he pulled her back.

‘Go up to the bathroom and pour buckets of water on the floor. It’s over the hall. We’ve got to stop the fire getting to the thatch!’

James ran to the kitchen as Agatha scampered up the stairs. Swearing, he filled a bucket of water and running back with it, hurled the contents at the living-room door, which was already
beginning to blister and crackle.

Upstairs, Agatha, sobbing with fright, poured water on the bathroom floor. There were shouts and yells from outside. Agatha clearly heard the voice of the pub landlord, John Fletcher, calling,
‘Keep throwing that earth. We daren’t wait for the fire brigade. Oh, Mrs Hardy. More earth. Let’s be having it! That there’s a petrol fire. I can smell it.’

Then, just as James shouted up, ‘It’s all right now, Agatha,’ she heard the sirens of police cars and the fire engine in the distance. She went slowly down the stairs and sat
on the bottom steps with her head in her hands.

The living-room door now stood open to reveal the black and smouldering wreck of the little hall, piled high with a mound of earth.

‘Who would do a thing like this?’ demanded James. ‘Someone meant to roast us alive.’

‘Probably Helen Warwick,’ said Agatha, and burst into tears.

Suddenly the house seemed to be full of people.

Fred Griggs, the policeman; Mrs Bloxby, with a sweater and trousers pulled on over her pyjamas; John Fletcher, the publican; Mrs Hardy; and various other villagers.

‘You’ve got Mrs Hardy here to thank for quick action,’ said Fred. ‘She phoned the fire brigade and then ran with buckets of earth to put on the fire. Water don’t do
much to stop a petrol fire.’

‘Are you all right, Mrs Raisin?’ Mrs Hardy’s normally bad-tempered face registered concern.

‘Bit shaken,’ said Agatha.

‘Who could have done such a thing?’

Agatha shuddered and wrapped her arms closely about herself. ‘I just don’t know.’

By the time the police arrived and then Bill Wong, and two other detectives Agatha did not know, the Carsely Ladies’ Society had commandeered the kitchen and were making tea for all.
Agatha was being fussed over and handed home-made cakes. John Fletcher had brought a case of beer along from the pub and was serving out drinks to the men. James was looking around the crowded
cottage in a bemused way and wondering whether to put on some music and make a party of it.

But the police cleared everyone out after having heard a report from the fire chief, and the detectives settled down to interview Agatha and James.

‘You’ve been putting that stick of yours in muddy waters and stirring things up,’ Bill accused Agatha. ‘Who did you go to see today?’ He glanced at the clock.
‘Or rather, yesterday.’

James flashed Agatha a warning glance, but Agatha said, ‘Helen Warwick.’

‘What! That secretary who was having an affair with Sir Desmond Derrington? I told you two not to interfere!’

James said wearily, ‘I know you did. But until this murder, or murders, is cleared up, Agatha and I feel we will always be suspects.’

‘I’ll talk to you about that later. Now, who else did you see?’

‘No one else yesterday.’

‘The day before?’

James hesitated. Then he shrugged and said, ‘Mrs Comfort had gone off to Spain with her lover, a Basil Morton who lives in Mircester. We went to see what we could find out about him.
He’s married and his wife hadn’t a clue what he was up to, so we left. Then we went to see Mrs Comfort’s ex-husband in Ashton-le-Walls. He threatened to set the dog on us. End of
story.’

‘And how did you find out about Mr Comfort? His address? Come to think of it, how did you get the addresses of those other people who were at the health farm?’

Agatha said, ‘Roy Silver employed a detective to find out about Jimmy. She dug up the addresses for us.’

‘Name?’

‘Can’t remember,’ mumbled Agatha.

‘We’ll ask Silver.’

Agatha looked helplessly at James.

‘There’s no need to lie, Agatha,’ said James. ‘We had a short stay at the health farm, Bill, and while we were there, I had a chance to look at the records. Do you think
the rest of the questioning could be left until we’ve had some sleep? We’re both rather shaky.’

‘All right. But I expect you both at police headquarters as soon as you can manage it.’

As Bill Wong drove off with the others, his first thought was, I’ve a lot to tell Maddie – followed hard by another thought, I’m damned if I will. It was strange they
couldn’t find the Gore-Appleton woman. And yet there was something nagging at the back of his mind, something someone had said, something very obvious he hadn’t thought of doing.

The village carpenter effected temporary repairs, putting up chipboard and a makeshift door the next day while James phoned the insurance company. Mrs Hardy phoned Agatha and
asked if she would ‘step next door’ for a chat. ‘I’ll see what she wants, James,’ said Agatha, ‘and then we’d better get off to Mircester.’

Agatha went reluctantly next door. She had taken such a dislike to Mrs Hardy, and yet the woman had done everything she could to help put out the fire. Not only that, she had saved their lives,
thought Agatha. That was a wild exaggeration, when they could both have escaped out of the back door.

But it was a changed Mrs Hardy who answered the door to her. ‘Come in, you poor thing,’ she said. ‘What a nightmare!’

‘Thank you for all your efforts on our behalf.’ Agatha followed her into the kitchen.

‘Coffee?’

‘Yes, please.’

Mrs Hardy poured two cups of coffee. They both sat down at the kitchen table.

‘I’ll come straight to the point.’ Mrs Hardy twisted her coffee cup nervously in her ringed hands. ‘I decided to settle in the country for peace and quiet. I was finding
it all too quiet, but what happened to you last night was frightening, not my idea of excitement. There’s a maniac on the loose and I want out of here. I am prepared to take your offer of one
hundred and ten thousand pounds.’

Agatha had a sudden impulse to say she would make it one hundred and thirty, the sum she had originally offered, but bit it back in time.

‘When do you want to settle at the lawyers’?’

‘Today, if possible,’ said Mrs Hardy.

‘Let me see, we’re just about to go into Mircester to make our statements. We could go on from there to Cheltenham. What about four o’clock?’

‘I’ll fix it.’

‘Tell me,’ said Agatha curiously, ‘what is it about Carsely that you don’t like, apart from murder and mayhem?’

She gave a little sigh. ‘I’ve been very lonely since my husband died. I thought a small village would be a friendly place.’

‘But it is!’ protested Agatha. ‘Everyone’s prepared to be friendly if you just give them a chance.’

‘But it means going to church and talking to the yokels in the pub and joining some dreadful ladies’ society.’

‘I find them delightful.’

‘Well, I don’t. I like cities. I’ll rent in London. I’ll put my stuff in storage and take a service flat for a few weeks and look around.’

But that remark of Mrs Hardy’s about not being able to make friends had gone straight to Agatha’s heart as she remembered her own lonely days before coming to Carsely.

She said, ‘Why don’t you stay? We could be friends.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’ Mrs Hardy gave a wry smile. ‘Don’t you want your cottage back?’

‘Well, I do, but . . .’

‘Then you shall have it. I’ll see you at the lawyers’ this afternoon.’

‘And that was that,’ said Agatha to James a few minutes later. ‘So I’ll soon be home again. She said as I was leaving that provided all the papers were
signed, I can move in in a fortnight.’

James felt slightly irritated. A moment before it had seemed that all he wanted out of life was to have his cottage to himself, without Agatha Raisin dribbling cigarette ash over everything. He
decided that she ought to look less delighted at the prospect of leaving his home.